Movie review: ‘Endless Love’ thankfully has an end

Watching “Endless Love” is like experiencing a Hallmark Hall of Fame revision of “Romeo and Juliet,” written by William Shakespeare’s long-lost cousin, Mandrake. “Romeo, Romeo, where the heck are you, Romeo?”

Well, Romeo would have taken a double dose of poison to avoid sitting through this shoddy remake of the 1981 turkey starring Babbling Brooke Shields. Now, you may wonder why Shana Feste (“Country Strong”), the remake’s director and co-writer, would want to resurrect a film that should have stayed buried like Imhotep.

Perhaps Feste thinks she can improve on the original. Not exactly a challenge. Or perhaps she wants to provide her own take on the Scott Spencer novel on which the movie is based. Well, the remake hardly resembles the book or the original film so mission accomplished there. Or perhaps she just doesn’t care, assuming 12-year-old girls and people who think like 12-year-old girls know nothing about the book or the original. Safe bet.

While the tween target audience might lap up the film’s sappy romance, the rest of free world might want to stay a few galaxies away from a film where love isn’t as endless as the clichés. Ready for the scintillating plot? Poor boy falls in love with rich girl, and she with him. But the rich girl’s dad objects. The lovers get separated, then they mope, they pine, and they pine and mope some more, but then – spoiler alert – they get reunited and live happily ever. That is, until they get incinerated in a kiln explosion. OK, I made up the kiln explosion part.

Gabriella Wilde (“Carrie”) plays the virginal rich girl, Jade Butterfield, who, after her older brother dies, retreats into a social cocoon. Alex Pettyfer (“Magic Mike”) plays the troubled poor boy, David Elliot, who has yearned for Jade for years but doesn’t act on his desires because … well, she’s so gorgeous and he’s so gorgeous. What do they have in common besides their gorgeousness? It’s a terrible burden they have to bear.

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Anyway, the two start to get chummy after they graduate from a high school in Georgia and before you can say “where are the condoms? they fall madly, deeply and passionately in love. And how peachy keen is David? He’s so peachy keen that when they’re about to have sex he says he can wait. Yeah, that happens all the time. Jade is the one who insists, that trollop. By the way, while the two make love, insipid interlude music plays loudly in the background. Just too romantic.

Then Jade’s dad, Hugh (David Greenwood) shows up and objects to David’s existence. The hardscrabble lad is clearly not good enough for his daughter. Golly gosh, David’s not even going to college. To try to make amends, David fixes the car of Jade’s dead brother. He also charms Jade’s mother, Anne (Joely Richardson), who thinks David is just right for her daughter.

But Hugh is determined to sabotage the relationship. So what’s a poor, little rich girl to do? Does she deny her father and refuse his name? Wait, I’ve heard that line before. You can bet the target audience will eat up this father-daughter dynamic. “My dad is an ogre, too,” says one tween. “He wouldn’t let me run away with my lover to Syria.”

In the meantime, we get treated to a stable of stereotypes. We have Mace (Dayo Okeniyi), David’s wisecracking best friend whose keeps popping in and out of the film for comic relief. We have Jenny (Emma Rigby), David’s witchy ex-girlfriend who keeps popping in and out of the film to cause trouble. We have Keith (Rhys Wakefield), Jade’s brother who is struggling to escape from the shadow of his dead brother while being weighed down by his father’s expectations. “Ordinary People,” anyone? And we have Harry (Robert Patrick), David’s really swell father who toils away as a mechanic.

For fans of romantic film formula, “Endless Love” features the “gaze,” where the two soon-to-be-lovers look at each other and somehow connect. It has “the dance” where the soon-to-be lovers get cozy with each other. And it has “the apparent defeat” where it looks like the lovers will never get together again.

The supporting cast, principally Richardson, fare better than the leads, who get saddled with lines that only Nicholas Sparks would find groovy. “You don’t fight for love!” Jade scolds David. “You’re terrified of it!” Take that, Mr. Hunk. And if Pettyfer and Wilde look like teens to you, I’d recommend investing in a seeing-eye dog. For the record, he’s 23 and she’s 24. Greenwood gets to twirl the Snidely Whiplash mustache here, but do you think his character will come around at the end?

Interestingly, the only American in the film’s major roles is Patrick. Pettyfer, Wilde, Richardson and Rigby are all Brits, Wakefield is an Aussie, Greenwood is a Canadian and Okeniyi is a Nigerian. It’s time Hollywood got tougher on immigration.

Feste and co-writer Joshua Safran (“Gossip Girl”) do know how to lather on the suds. And Feste doesn’t miss a chance to trot out standard tragic moments. Don’t get in that car! Don’t drop that candle! Don’t French kiss that crocodile! Fans of choppy editing, meanwhile, will love the scene where a joyous Jade goes skipping through the grass in the night, and then suddenly it’s day.

The original “Endless Love,” of course, gave us the title song by Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie that stayed No. 1 on the Billboard charts for nine weeks. That tune is not found in the remake. The original also marked the film debut of some actor named Tom Cruise.

Perhaps this film will launch the career of a thespian not yet known to the masses. Or maybe the movie will sink into obscurity. I can see the headline now: “Endless Love” falls into bottomless pit.

“Endless Love” is rated PG-13 with a running time of 103 minutes. It is directed by Shana Feste, who wrote the script with Joshua Safran. It stars Alex Pettyfer and Gabriella Wilde. Grade: D.