Endless Love is a 1981 American romantic drama film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, starring Brooke Shields and Martin Hewitt. The film marks Tom Cruise'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. The film also discards the non-chronological structure of the novel and tells all the events in chronological sequence. 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 and Lionel Richie, became a #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. The song spent nine weeks at #1 and received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for "Best Original Song", along with five Grammy Award nominations. Plot In suburban Chicago, 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