Endless Love

The movie as a whole does not understand the particular strengths of the novel that inspired it, does not convince us it understands adolescent love, does not seem to know its characters very well, and is a narrative and logical mess. Read full review

Mr. Zeffirelli and his screenwriter, Judith Rascoe, have bitten off so much more than they can chew that their film is virtually unintelligible at times. A great deal happens in the novel, much more than this two-hour movie can contain. But it tries to touch so many bases that its transitions are jolting, its scenes often undeveloped, and the motives of its characters frequently unclear. Read full review

And the person who seems least convinced of the validity of the passion is Brooke Shields, who looks ravishing but is most charming when she's childishly affectionate or aloof -- thus blithely making her partner, with his burning eyes, look demented. One begins to feel that making her forgive arson and worse in the name of true love is forcing the naivete of adults on a sensible child. [17 July 1981, p.17]

A Cotton-candy rendition of Scott Spencer's powerful novel, Endless Love is a manipulative tale of a doomed romance which careens repeatedly between the credible and the ridiculous. Read full review

Hith her flat little voice and her skinny emotional range, one has to wonder: Is Brooke Shields truly obsession worthy? And can she carry, commercially, another movie about another kind of obsession? The answer is no. Read full review

Isn't it past time to stop dangling Brooke Shields as erotic bait in movies where it's obvious that she doesn't comprehend sexality and everyone knows she's always doubled in sexually graphic interludes anyway? There's one weirdly funny take that seems to satirize this pretty string bean's excruciating lack of sexual consciousness. Tilting her head to one side and smiling like a simp, she looks amazingly like the friendliest extraterrestrial in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." [17 July 1981, p.B2]

With pretty Martin Hewitt as David and pretty Brooke Shields as Jade, what you get is an overwrought teen make-out movie. [27 July 1981, p.74]

Scott Spencer's intelligent, rather lurid novel of youthful angst is here watered down to stock teen romance. Most notably, the graphic sex scenes at the core of the book are reduced to picture-perfect set pieces, and the film is soporifically slow-moving. Read full review

Endless? It's interminable...As excruciating as the Diana Ross/Lionel Richie title tune. Read full review