Endless Love (2014), PG-13, 1 star

Gabrielle Wilde and Alex Pettyfer swimming and a little more than that.

What is love? It is a song, yes, but who can succinctly define love? Maybe, a therapist or a marriage counselor. However, anybody who can define love is not an expert because each person who knows what love is explored it for themselves. Teenage love has been displayed so many times on-screen that now every story has become predictable. But, filmmakers try effortlessly to structure the whole story with different angles of the love story. For example, The Spectacular Now had an original story with realistic characters being in an awkward and huge predicament in terms of love. This movie, however, is totally the opposite.

Jade Butterfield (Gabriella Wilde), an introverted high schooler, is graduating and she is going to attend to Brown University in the fall. And then from out of nowhere, David (Alex Pettyfer) notices her and is intrigued by her. David works as a valet at a restaurant as he observes her and her family going into dinner as Jade walks outside to ask him to sign her yearbook. David has a temper as he is insulted and rants against his client and he is fired.

David is invited to Jade's graduation party as it is filled with his father's middle-aged friends and none of her friends. Now, I thought was so stupid. David makes an anonymous phone call filing a fake noise complaint at the other graduation party, so all of his and her friends can attend Jade's graduation party. Doesn't the police have caller ID and they are nowhere near the party? Come on, cops. David and Jade are smitten with each other as Jade's father (Bruce Greenwood) get suspicious as Jade comes out of a closet with David behind her as he delivers a speech.

Jade's father (Bruce Greenwood) having a serious talk with David.

Do you get that feeling when a cat scratches you on the face? That's what it felt like when I was watching the movie. This movie was excruciating to watch. I thought it was a straight-forward march to the final predictable scene. Basically, it is guy meets girl, father hates guy, father does not want him in his daughter's life, guy falls in love with girl despite father's warning, an unnecessary sex scene near a fireplace (what a cliché!), and trite dialogue: the end. Ugh! It is like the filmmakers used a book of teenage romantic clichés to make this movie to get money.

Gabrielle Wilde and Alex Pettyfer play an attractive couple that are trapped with mediocre dialogue and predictable situations. They are both forgettable. The support from veteran actors Bruce Greenwood, Joely Richardson as Jade's mother, and Robert Patrick as David's father does not take the movie up a notch. They play standard cardboard characters inserted necessarily because the story requires them. So, they are just there for a paycheck. The only performance I thought had a bit of spark was David's valet friend played by Dako Okeniyi.

The look of the movie is focused and pretty and that is the only additional compliment I can honestly type on this review. This movie is a generic and clichéd-riddled perfume or model advertisement. Despite the running time of about an hour and 45 minutes, it was still too long and it was jokingly endless. It is a ludicrous piece of filmmaking added to the book of movies filled with romantic clichés. I hope there is someone out there making this book because every director attempts to make a teenage romantic movie needs to avoid those clichés. This movie is unbearable.

*