The End of the Affair (1999)

Directed by Neil Jordan. Starring Ralph Fiennes, Julianne Moore, Stephen Rea, Ian Hart, Jason Isaacs, Sam Bould, James Bolam, Simon Fisher Turner. [R]

Second film adaptation of the Graham Greene novel makes for an evocative wartime romantic drama, passionate but remote and melancholy, as world-weary as men in rain-drenched fedoras and trenchcoats. Fiennes (who also narrates) is a writer who embarked upon an affair with the wife (Moore) of a sadsack government worker (Rea), and he cannot ascertain what eventually brought it to a close. Told mostly through flashback vignettes, the story holds interest, and the cast is more than capable, but it’s the atmosphere of the damp photography and ravishing decoration that steers the ship through the disconsolate fog. The Catholic guilt angle, however, is weakly integrated, which makes a “miraculous” revelation in the closing chapter even more difficult to swallow, let alone embrace as being an organic portion of this modestly muted melodrama. Director Jordan also wrote the screenplay and co-produced with Stephen Woolley.

75/100