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94Rereading Greene's book, one is struck anew by the absolute perfection of the film's casting.
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91A gripping account of grown-up sensuality, obsession, loss and hope.
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90Has everything a period romance should have, including a score by Michael Nyman and passionate performances by stars Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore.
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90A faithful adaptation that captures the haunting spirit and religious nature of the 1951 novel.
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88Splendid acting helps Jordan achieve most of his goals, although some may find the romantic and religious elements an uneasy mixture.
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88Without a hint of sanctimony, it is a love story as much about soul as heart.
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80I'd put The End of the Affair just beneath the top rung of Jordan movies or Greene-based films (it's no "The Fallen Idol" or "The Third Man"), with Moore the critical element that makes it necessary viewing.
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80It's swell when a film really does capture a book in some exactitude.
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80When it comes to holiday films worth swooning over, here's the one to see.
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80Moore and Fiennes both give impassioned, sexy performances.
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75Few recent movie romances have a more chilling and peculiar feel -- and a more sobering aftertaste -- than Neil Jordan's heart-rendingly cold adaptation of Affair.
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75The End of the Affair's masterfully heartbroken final scene is scarier in its nightmarishly wry suggestion of ill fate than anything that ever happened on Elm Street.
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75The affair itself, in its genteel way, does catch fire, but it's the end of the affair that needs to move us to rapture, and the movie, instead, just drifts away.
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70Rests on three excellent performances, of which the most difficult is Stephen Rea's.
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70Watching this well-behaved adaptation of one of Greene's most personal novels, you can't help but wish that the novelist had been around to write his own script.
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70A religious conspiracy disguised as a romance.
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67An engaging but essentially routine tragic romance.
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63If the movie were not so downbeat and its literary pedigree so distinguished, the resolution would be soap opera.
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63Many of the right elements -- the '40s look, the melodrama, the love that transcends reason.
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63Rather prosy until its final third. Then it grabs you with unexpected force.
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63The immaculately crafted film that just sits there and refuses to come to life.
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60About halfway through I began to imagine it as it might have been directed by Douglas Sirk as a vehicle for Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson.
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60A film of ideas; meaty ideas about Catholicism, faith, and the true nature of jealousy, love and hate, that are rarely contemplated in today's cinema.
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60If you're looking to be romantically captivated, this movie just might do the job.
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50It's hard to feel anything but disappointment and boredom by the time the picture grinds to a mystical ending.
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50Its impression lingers in the mind, giving the film a longer half-life than it would otherwise deserve.
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50This is the kind of movie in which even the sex scenes are soulless.
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50Read like a long, anguished prayer, but on screen it looks an awful lot like blasphemy.
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50Ultimately feels like a movie whose heart is in the right place, even though someone neglected to flip the 'On' switch.
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50Satisfying in its setup and execution, and the Catholic guilt streaked through its dank, rainy atmosphere serves it well. Nonetheless, the story's subtleties in this version are often outweighed by melodrama, sometimes verging on sap.
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50Fails to capture the spiritual hallelujah of the novel.
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25"I didn't write this." In heaven, Graham Greene is mumbling those same words over and over right now.
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