Enduring Love

(Herald rating: * * * *)

Enduring Love is the fifth of Ian McEwan's novels to be adapted for the big screen. The previous ones rarely worked as movies, whether they were the overbaked Paul Schraeder-Harold Pinter take on Comfort of Strangers or the Macaulay Culkin-misfire of The Good Son.

But Enduring Love largely succeeds in its aim of being faithful to the spirit of McEwan's 1997 bestseller and as a cinematic psychological thriller that has more on its mind than just adrenalin and menace.

It helps that McEwan's opening chapter can't fail as a movie opening, with its depiction of how a tranquil picnic turns to tragedy when a hot-air balloon gets out of control and a rescuer dies after grabbing at the ropes and being lifted aloft. With its combination of vertigo, panic, silence, and the havoc wrought by a gentle breeze, it makes for a quietly devastating opening, which sets the rest of the film on edge, as it does the book.

Among the rescuers are lecturer Joe (Craig) and a stranger Jed (Ifans), who contacts the academic saying they have things to discuss. At first, Joe thinks the scruffy Jed could be suffering some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder, but it's soon clear his mental state is far more unbalanced than that. Jed's intrusion into Joe's life starts to cause ructions in his relationship with girlfriend Claire (Morton).

The trimmings and alterations from the book do stretch the film's credibility. At no time does Joe go to the police about Jed's stalker-like behaviour. And Joe has been turned from a writer to a lecturer in something that's never made clear but which allows him to pronounce loudly and cynically on the true nature of love at the same time that his own lovelife is unravelling because of the unwanted attentions of an unhinged stranger.

What helps Enduring Love work on the screen are the impressive central performances. Craig's Joe is a vivid depiction of a man at the end of his tether, frustrated that his superior intellect can't help him deal with his predicament. Ifans' softly spoken sad-eyed and seemingly religious maniac is equally riveting, right to the scene that director Michell playfully inserts as a creepy coda after the main credits.

CAST: Daniel Craig, Rhys Ifans, Samantha Morton

DIRECTOR: Roger Michell

RATING: R16 (violence and offensive language)

RUNNING TIME: 96 mins

SCREENING: Rialto