Enduring Love

This movie has an absolutely stunning opening, and then sort of petered out. A couple are having a picnic in an open field. Suddenly a hot air balloon hits the ground. A man falls out, the balloon starts up again, the man grabs a rope. There is a boy inside. Other people appear, and five of them wrestle the balloon to safety … but then a wind rises, the boy accidentally turns on the gas, and the balloon rises again. Four of the men drop away in time, but one holds on too long. He dangles. He falls. We see his body, which is horrible, sitting upright but utterly destroyed.

The man who was first on the scene is troubled, thinking if they had all held on the man would not have lost his life. Was he the first to let go? He begins to obsess about it. Then this is all complicated by one of the other would-be rescuers, who is a flat-out psychotic stalker. And I somehow can’t make the two things fit together. Is this an examination of our obligation to our fellow man, or a psychological thriller? The last part doesn’t work, because at any time the stalkee could have called the cops, or taken other steps. Too bad, because the movie had me going real well for the first hour.

Oddly, the stalker is played by Rhys Ifans, who also starred in Danny Deckchair, about a guy who went on an adventure involving balloons.