On form, Ian McEwan is the outstanding novelist of his generation. Unfortunately, Enduring Love is not one of his better works. The story could perhaps be made to work better on film, but this outing suggests not. The spectacular opening to the novel is faithfully captured here, when the main players quite literally drop into our lives. The other strong point of the novel is the suggestion that Jed may just be a figment of the protagonist's imagination, an intriguing plot device sadly not employed by the filmmakers. In the novel, the fact that Joe never calls the police hints at delusion on Joe's part; in the film, with Jed clearly all too real, the absence of any report to authority about Jed's stalking punctures our suspension of disbelief.<br /><br />Craig puts in another wide-ranging performance, while Morton, never less than awe-inspiring, is flawless. Rhys Ifans redeems himself for The Replacements with a genuinely unnerving performance. Who thought that soppy Welsh git from Notting Hill could be this scary? However, outstanding performances alone cannot redeem a less-than-compelling story. A two-hour film just does not allow the time and scope for the exploration of themes involving religion, psychology, biology and physics that McEwan dissects so well in his prose. In the film version of Enduring Love, there is something arid and stilted about all the clamour and confusion in the relationships. A lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing, to paraphrase the bard.<br /><br />De Clerambault is a fascinating, but obscure and rarely glimpsed syndrome. I read the novel when it came out, and remember thinking after reading the last page, 'So what?' In that sense, I suppose, the film is a faithful adaptation of the book.