Enduring love : He Loves Him, Him Loves Her, Her Loves Herself

M. Dargis

In the new British film "Enduring Love," the actor Rhys Ifans plays the part of the scorned lover with neurasthenic delicacy and a spidery creepiness. Lanky and loose-limbed, Mr. Ifans has fine flaxen hair that occasionally brushes into his eyes, a bit of peekaboo that in the role of Jed Parry, scorned lover and full-bore psychopath, the actor transforms into a gesture of unsettling coquetry. Jed loves Joe (Daniel Craig), who in turn loves Claire (Samantha Morton), who in the way of the world and tragic romances, mostly seems to love herself. Theirs is a roundelay of misunderstanding and bruising, modern disconnection.Based on the novel by the English writer Ian McEwan and directed by Roger Michell, an Englishman who is probably best known for the grating romantic comedy "Notting Hill" and should be known more for the pulp thriller "Changing Lanes," "Enduring Love" is a serious movie about love, principally its petty cruelties and monstrous disguises. Soft, tender love, the kind that wraps you in comfort and warmth, much less the kind that sends you over the moon, is almost nonexistent in this curious, lachrymose story. The film takes it as an article of faith that the only answer to pain isn't a gentle hand, but yet more pain, which Mr. Michell and the screenwriter Joe Penhall apply with much the same dedication Laurence Olivier brought to dentistry in "Marathon Man."