Girls on Film: The sanitization of Endless Love

Shana Feste's re-imaging of the 1981 melodrama swaps out a dangerous obsession for a sympathetic young romance

Endless Love

This Valentine's Day marks the release of the first female-directed studio picture of the year: Shana Feste's romantic melodrama Endless Love. Gabriella Wilde and Alex Pettyfer star as "a privileged girl and a charismatic boy whose instant desire sparks a love affair made only more reckless by parents trying to keep them apart." In theory, it's a modern remake of Franco Zeffirelli's 1981 film of the same name, and by extension Scott Spencer's 1979 novel — though it bears almost no resemblance to either of them.

Spencer's novel can be an unsettling and uncomfortable read. His "hero," David Axelrod, is not a charismatic figure. He is solely, and horrifically, attached to Jade Butterfield. The most minute consequence for his obsessive actions sends him over the edge. After spending countless sleepless nights with the young Jade (with parental consent), they ask him to take a mere 30-day hiatus and give their daughter a chance to rest, which sends him into fitful delusions of grandeur that begin the novel: He will set their house on fire, then fight the fire, save the family, become a hero, and get his hiatus revoked.

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Monika Bartyzel

Monika Bartyzel is a freelance writer and creator of Girls on Film, a weekly look at femme-centric film news and concerns, now appearing at TheWeek.com. Her work has been published on sites including The Atlantic, Movies.com, Moviefone, Collider, and the now-defunct Cinematical, where she was a lead writer and assignment editor.