Endless Love 1981 Rating Patched Guide

Directed by Franco Zeffirelli (the legendary Italian director of Romeo and Juliet ), the 1981 film Endless Love is a fascinating artifact of Hollywood’s transition from the gritty 1970s to the glossy 1980s. But why is the rating so low? Was it truly a bad film, or has history judged it too harshly?

Janet Maslin of The New York Times echoed these sentiments, describing the film as a "lugubrious and faintly ridiculous wallow in teen-age torment." The critical rating suffered because the film was compared to Zeffirelli’s previous works. Where his Romeo and Juliet felt vibrant and earned its tragedy through circumstance and feuding families, Endless Love felt manufactured. Critics found the central conflict—that of a teenage boy who sets a house on fire to "save" his girlfriend from her overbearing father—hysterical in the wrong sense of the word. endless love 1981 rating

. While it is famous for its chart-topping Lionel Richie and Diana Ross theme song and for being Tom Cruise’s film debut, the movie itself is widely considered a "botched" adaptation of Scott Spencer's novel. Review: A Melodramatic Mess Janet Maslin of The New York Times echoed