This is a Blog Post of Hate (Not Really Though)

Director Neil Jordan’s The End of the Affair tells a tale of striking emotional and spiritual depth. Set in a war-torn English society, the plot is not so much driven by the action of its surroundings but by one central emotion: love: the way it torments the human soul, breeds betrayal, regret, longing and leaves three characters unfulfilled by the movie’s end. One might expect a story centered on such emotional turbulence might become dull, devoid of the activity and humor of many contemporary forms of entertainment. Yet Jordan’s work really struck a chord within me with its depiction of such raw human emotion and the tormented characters of Maurice Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes), Sarah Miles (Julianne Moore), and Henry Miles (Stephen Rea). As Maurice Bendrix toils with the gravity of his jealousy, as Sarah Miles kneels defeated before God in a prayer of desperation and sacrificial offering, as Henry sits stoically yet devastated on that rainy evening gazing onward, Jordan creates such human portraits with his characters: characters that bow to human passion, struggle with faith, and seek to navigate the intricate and delicate web of relationships created by their desires and failings. With his character’s facial expressions and tones of voice, Jordan presents such authentic characters whose emotions extend beyond the movie to touch the audience with their potency. Even in the act of depicting Henry Miles’ feelings of detachment from his wife, Jordan attaches his character to the audience ever more closely with his wrinkled, defeated face, content with his wife as a mere commodity and reminder of normalcy in his life, essentially replaceable “like his newspaper”. After reading an overview of Graham Greene’s novel The End of the Affair, the movie does seem to fail in one regard. Jordan extends the film to include a rekindling of the affair that never is spoken of in the book. In the movie, Sarah Miles dies, seemingly as a result of her renewed affair and broken promise to God. Jordan seems to suggest that those who break promises will be punished while Greene’s tale suggests that the end of the affairs brings redemption to Sarah.  The tale remains one of retribution by God yet takes a much darker course in Jordan’s version. Doing so seems to just contribute inessential weightiness to Jordan’s already ponderous tale.

Jordan uses perspective so skillfully in his movie. He recasts scenes from different point of views as the plot unfolds in the eyes of the central character Maurice Bendrix. For example, in the scene where Maurice is launched off the balcony by the bomb, the audience initially witnesses this jarring occurrence from Maurice’s perspective. Sarah’s praying seems uncharacteristic as well as impractical to the audience and Maurice in light of the medical attention he obviously needs. Yet Maurice and the audience share the same limited point of view at this point. As Maurice reads Sarah’s diary, he and the audience uncover that startling moment in her life through her own eyes. The intensity of Sarah’s love for Maurice then comes alive in this moment, the need for prayer to seek some relief from her suffering and desperation and resultant beseeching of God for intervention. This technique applied by Jordan has two major effects for its viewers. Firstly, it makes Maurice’s realizations about Sarah’s character all the more startling for the audience, as they too are uncovering this information for the first time. By shattering his audience’s conceptions of reality, Jordan further deepens the substance of his characters, who have the potential for such a wide scope of courses of action with their complex mental states. Also, the story becomes a mystery, with details left unclear in the viewer’s mind being resolved in a powerful flourish late in the work. The aura of mystery adds suspense to the work as the viewer yearns to discover what detail will be made clear next. A story that initially seemed devoid of any spiritual implication with seemingly agnostic characters gains such spiritual worth with the realization of the importance of God’s presence looming over its course.

Labeled as a “Catholic novel” by Greene, The End of the Affair has obvious spiritual importance. Maurice labels the story he writes as a “diary of hate”, and it gradually becomes clear that this hatred is addressed towards God for ridding him of Sarah, for winning over the hearts of men and women in abstraction, for possessing Sarah so fully, so much more completely than Maurice despite his physical closeness with her for some time. Duty to God was a powerful theme throughout “The Power and the Glory” as the whiskey priest felt torn between his own sinfulness and call to ministry. Sarah suffers a similar torment, as her offering of self to Christ calls for a renouncing of her sexual intimacy with Maurice that she cannot fully renounce. God seems to offer redemption to Sarah, who becomes a figure of healing and grace, ridding a young boy of his birth mark with a kiss and dedicating herself to prayer. Redemptive grace has been a theme Greene has explored in many cases. Some examples include the whiskey priest redeeming the self in his quest throughout Mexico and the young boy in “The Hint of an Explanation” sinning by Blacker’s poisonous hand but then receiving God’s grace and calling to the priesthood. Greene seems to suggest that redemption is available to those who are open to God, that the good will be rewarded despite man’s sinfulness and struggle as they are inherent parts of the human experience.  Jordan ultimately has Sarah renounce her faithfulness, leaving her to her own devices and demise by terminal illness.