''Endless Love'' is a 1981 American

romantic drama Romance films or movies involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their journey ...

film directed by

Franco Zeffirelli Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli (12 February 1923 – 15 June 2019), was an Italian stage and film director, producer, production designer and politician. He was one of the most significant opera and theatre directors of the post-World War II era, ...

, starring

Brooke Shields Brooke Christa Shields (born May 31, 1965) is an American actress and model. She was initially a child model and gained critical acclaim at age 12 for her leading role in Louis Malle's film ''Pretty Baby'' (1978). She continued to model into ...

and Martin Hewitt. The film marks

Tom Cruise Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3, 1962), known professionally as Tom Cruise, is an American actor and producer. One of the world's highest-paid actors, he has received various accolades, including an Honorary Palme d'Or and three Go ...

's feature film appearance debut. Based on the 1979 Scott Spencer novel of the same name, the screenplay was written by Judith Rascoe. The original music score was composed by Jonathan Tunick. Although the novel is set in the summer of 1969, the movie transports the action to the early 1980s. Critics compared the film unfavorably to the novel, which showcased the dangers of obsessive love. Despite the poor reviews, its eponymous theme song, performed by

Diana Ross Diana Ross (born March 26, 1944) is an American singer and actress. She rose to fame as the lead singer of the vocal group the Supremes, who became Motown's most successful act during the 1960s and one of the world's best-selling girl groups o ...

and

Lionel Richie Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. (born June 20, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and television personality. He rose to fame in the 1970s as a songwriter and the co-lead singer of funk band the Commodores; writing and recor ...

, became a #1 hit on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The song spent nine weeks at #1 and received

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment in ...

and

Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...

nominations for "Best Original Song", along with five

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...

nominations.

Plot

In suburban

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, teenagers Jade Butterfield and David Axelrod fall in love after being introduced by Jade's brother Keith. The Butterfields' bohemian lifestyle, for which they're well known in their community, allows Jade and David to develop an all-consuming and passionate relationship, including allowing them to have sex in Jade's room. Where her family is open, David's home life is dull; his parents are wealthy liberal political activists who have little interest in his life. One night, Jade's mother Ann sneaks downstairs, catching Jade and David making love by the fireplace. She starts living vicariously through them but her husband, Hugh, watches them with increasing unease. Jade's nightly trysts begin to negatively impact her grades and her ability to sleep. One night, she tries to steal a prescription sleeping pill from her father but he catches her. As a last straw, Hugh demands that David stop seeing Jade until the end of the school term. Although initially causing a scene, Ann gently coaxes David to agree, telling him not to let Hugh "do something he'll regret". Back at school, one of David's friends, Billy, tells him that when he was eight, he tried to burn a pile of newspapers, got scared and put the fire out, and his parents thought he was a hero for saving the house from burning. Inspired by this story, David starts a fire on the Butterfields' front porch and walks away. But by the time he returns, the flame has spread too far. David evacuates the Butterfields from the burning house before he is subsequently apprehended. Following trial, David is convicted of second-degree arson, sentenced to five years' probation, sent to a

mental hospital Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociati ...

for evaluation and forbidden to go anywhere near Jade or her family again. He continues to write her daily, but the letters aren't sent because of the no-contact order. His parents pull strings to have him released early, much to Hugh's chagrin. Meanwhile, David receives his many letters upon his exit, and after realizing why Jade never wrote back, he decides to pursue her although he knows it is a violation of his parole. After the loss of their home, the Butterfields moved from Chicago to

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of co ...

where Ann and Hugh file for

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...

. In Manhattan, Ann tries to seduce David but he refuses, leaving her confused. When she isn't looking, he thumbs through her address book, finding out where Jade is and discovers that she now attends the

University of Vermont The University of Vermont (UVM), officially the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, is a public land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont. It was founded in 1791 and is among the oldest universities in the United ...

. Intent on catching a bus to Vermont, David sees Hugh on the street. He starts chasing him, and Hugh is hit by a car and killed. Hugh's fiancée Ingrid arrives to the scene just in time to see David leaving. He comes close to boarding the bus to Vermont, but is overcome with grief and returns to Ann's apartment and consoles her. Later, Jade goes to David's room to say goodbye but he pulls her back as she tries to leave, throwing her on the bed and holding her down until she admits she loves him. Keith goes to David's to find them together again and tells Jade that David is at fault for their father's death. She refuses to believe it at first but when he confirms that David was actually at the scene, she becomes horrified and hides behind Keith. Trying to explain, David shoves Keith out of the way in a desperate bid to get to her. Keith holds him off until the police arrive and arrest David for brawling, disturbing the peace and violating his parole. David is sentenced to prison and despairs that he'll never see Jade again. At a lakeside, Jade tells Ann that nobody will ever love her like David does. From behind bars, David sees Jade approach him through his barred cell window.

Cast

Production

''Endless Love'' is based on Scott Spencer's 1979 novel of the same name. The film is directed by

and written by Judith Rascoe. The film stars

and Martin Hewitt in the two leading roles. It is also the film debut of Hewitt,

, Jami Gertz, Jeff Marcus and Ian Ziering. Principal photography of this film began on 22nd September 1980 and shot on location in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

and Long Island as well on set at

Astoria Studios The Kaufman Astoria Studios is a film studio located in the Astoria section of the New York City borough of Queens. The studio was constructed for Famous Players-Lasky in 1920, since it was close to Manhattan's Broadway theater district. ...

Queens, NY Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Lon ...

. Production of this film was finished on 19th December 1980. The

MPAA The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu ...

awarded the initial cut of ''Endless Love'' an X rating. Director

subsequently made several cuts in the love scenes between Brooke Shields and Martin Hewitt to achieve a lower rating. The film was re-submitted to the MPAA five times before they awarded it an R rating.

Soundtrack

The film's theme song, written by

and performed by Richie and

and also called " Endless Love", became a number 1 hit on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, and was the biggest-selling single in Ross' career. Billboard magazine chose it as "The Best Duet of All Time" in 2011, 30 years after its debut. It spent nine weeks at #1 and received

and

nominations for "Best Original Song", along with five

nominations. The soundtrack peaked at #9 on the Billboard Top 200 and was certified platinum. It also featured a second duet between Ross and Richie, "Dreaming of You", that received considerable airplay but was never released as a single.

Reception

The film received mostly poor reviews on release.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

compared the film unfavorably with the novel, describing Martin Hewitt as miscast and criticizing the narrative, although he did praise Brooke Shields' performance:

Is there anything good in the movie? Yes. Brooke Shields is good. She is a great natural beauty, and she demonstrates, in a scene of tenderness and concern for Hewitt and in a scene of rage with her father, that she has a strong, unaffected screen acting manner. But 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.

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''The New York Times''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin ...

in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote:

There are two sorts of people who'll be going to see ''Endless Love'' — those who have read the richly imaginative novel on which the movie is based and those who have not. There will be dismay in the first camp, but it may be nothing beside the bewilderment in the second."

Film historian

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of f ...

seemed to agree, calling the film a "textbook example of how to do everything wrong in a literary adaptation." In 2014, Scott Spencer, the author of the novel on which the film was based, wrote, "I was frankly surprised that something so tepid and conventional could have been fashioned from my slightly unhinged novel about the glorious destructive violence of erotic obsession". Spencer described the film as a "botched" job and wrote that Franco Zeffirelli "egregiously and ridiculously misunderstood" the novel. As of November 2021, ''Endless Love'' holds a rating of 26% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

based on 19 reviews.

Release and box office

The film premiere for ''Endless Love'' took place on July 16, 1981, at the Ziegfeld Theatre in

. The film was released the next day. Despite the poor critical reception, the film was a box office success. It made $4,163,623 on its opening weekend and went on to gross $31,184,024 in total, becoming the twenty-second highest earning film domestically in 1981. Internationally, the film took in a further $1,308,650 bringing its total worldwide gross to $32,492,674.

Home media

The film was released on

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of s ...

Shout! Factory Shout! Factory is an American home video and music company founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases include previously released feature films, classic and contemporary television series, animation, live music, and comedy ...

in mid-August 2019, with enhanced

5.1 surround sound 5.1 surround sound ("five-point one") is the common name for surround sound audio systems. 5.1 is the most commonly used layout in home theatres. It uses five full bandwidth channels and one low-frequency effects channel (the "point one"). Dolb ...

. It is also available in the streaming format via various providers.

Awards and nominations

Other Honors

American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees. Lead ...

: * 100 Passions (2002) – Nominated * 100 Songs (2004): " Endless Love" – Nominated

References

External links

* * * * * {{Franco Zeffirelli 1981 films 1980s coming-of-age drama films 1981 romantic drama films 1980s teen drama films 1980s teen romance films American coming-of-age drama films American romantic drama films American teen drama films American teen romance films Coming-of-age romance films Films about dysfunctional families Films about virginity Films based on American novels Films based on romance novels Films directed by Franco Zeffirelli Films set in Chicago Films shot in Chicago Films shot in New York City PolyGram Filmed Entertainment films Universal Pictures films Juvenile sexuality in films 1980s English-language films 1980s American films