💔 Endless Love (1981): “More Like Endless Run Time”

There are bad love stories, and then there’s Endless Love—a film that takes the idea of young romance and shoves it face-first into a fireplace. Literally. It’s the kind of movie where if someone said “Hey, let’s make Romeo and Juliet, but with zero charm, a restraining order, and Brooke Shields looking like she wants to fire her agent,” the studio said, “Here’s a budget. And a theme song.”

Let’s get the headline out of the way: this movie is not romantic. It’s unsettling. It’s a 95-minute red flag.

🛋️ The Plot: A Pyromaniac Valentine

David (Martin Hewitt), a lovesick teenager with the emotional control of a microwave on the fritz, falls for Jade (Brooke Shields), a porcelain doll with eyebrows so strong they could sign a contract. They’re teenagers. They’re in love. They also have the chemistry of two mannequins locked in a Sears stockroom.

When Jade’s parents try to create some space between them—because David is, you know, completely obsessed—he responds by burning their house down. As you do in any healthy courtship. Nothing says “I love you” like lighting up the family living room like a Yule log.

And it only gets worse.

David gets institutionalized, writes hundreds of letters (which her dad hides), then gets out and still thinks he and Jade are soulmates. It’s Fatal Attraction: The Teen Years, but without the self-awareness.

🧼 The Romance: Please Call a Therapist

This film is the cinematic equivalent of a stalker writing poetry on your windshield in lipstick. David is clingy, unstable, and emotionally unhinged—and yet the movie wants you to root for him like he’s just a boy in love. No. He’s just a boy who needs a therapist, a police escort, and maybe a fire extinguisher.

Jade? She’s barely a character. She just kind of… floats through scenes, blinking. She has less agency than the house that burns down. Her role is to look wide-eyed and softly confused while everyone around her makes objectively awful decisions.

🎭 The Acting: Stiff Enough to Be Used in Carpentry

Martin Hewitt delivers every line like he’s trying to remember it while walking through quicksand. He’s earnest, sure, but also wooden. You can practically hear the director off-camera whispering, “Feel something. Anything. Please.”

Brooke Shields is stunning, but this role is more mannequin than muse. She’s given nothing to work with. The script hands her a personality made of gauze and then asks her to carry an entire tragic romance.

And then, like a bizarre fever dream, Tom Cruise shows up for five seconds to yell about how he likes being naked.

🔥 The Fire: Not Just in the Fireplace

David burns a literal house down, but the real fire is the one consuming any logic in this screenplay. At one point, Jade’s dad—played by the great Don Murray—weirdly encourages their physical relationship, like he read the parenting manual upside down. Later, he tries to beat David up. This character arc reads like a Mad Lib filled out by someone in the middle of a breakdown.

And let’s not forget Shirley Knight, Jade’s mother, who may or may not want to seduce David at one point. It’s vague. It’s awkward. It’s like someone dared the movie to get even weirder and the movie said, “Hold my wine spritzer.”

🎵 The Music: The Only Thing That Survived

Now, to be fair, the theme song slaps. Lionel Richie and Diana Ross teamed up to give us “Endless Love”, which is so good it accidentally gave this movie credibility. The song lives on. The movie? It should be sealed in a vault labeled Caution: Hormonal Arson Fantasy.

🧨 Final Thoughts: A PSA Disguised as a Romance

Endless Love is not a love story. It’s a cautionary tale with a soft-focus lens and a terrifying message: if you love someone, stalk them, set fires, and break into their home. They’ll thank you later.

It’s a movie that thinks obsession is sexy, trauma is poetic, and arson is just a metaphor. It’s not. It’s a felony.

💀 Verdict:

1.5 out of 5 flaming valentines.
One point for the theme song. Half a point for future nut cake Tom Cruise shouting about nudity. That’s it.