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EndlessLove is a 1981 American romantic drama film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, and starring Brooke Shields, Martin Hewitt, Shirley Knight, Don Murray, Richard Kiley, Penelope Milford and Beatrice Straight. It also marked Tom Cruise's film debut.

Based on the 1979 Scott Spencer novel of the same name, the screenplay was written by Judith Rascoe. The original music score was composed by Jonathan Tunick. Although the novel is set in the summer of 1969, the movie transports the action to the early 1980s. The film also discards the non-chronological structure of the novel and tells all the events in chronological sequence.

Critics compared the film unfavorably to the novel, which showcased the dangers of obsessive love. Despite the poor reviews, its eponymous theme song, performed by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie, became a #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.[2] The song spent nine weeks at #1 and received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for "Best Original Song", along with five Grammy Award nominations.

In suburban Chicago, Jade Butterfield and David Axelrod fall in love after being introduced by Jade's older brother Keith. The Butterfields' bohemian lifestyle, for which they're well known in their community, allows Jade and David to develop an all-consuming and passionate relationship, including allowing them to have sex in Jade's room. Where her family is open, David's home life is dull; his parents are wealthy conservative political activists who have little interest in his life.

One night, Jade's mother Ann sneaks downstairs, catching Jade and David making love by the fireplace. She starts living vicariously through them but her husband, Hugh, watches them with increasing unease. Jade's nightly trysts begin to negatively impact her grades and her ability to sleep. One night, she tries to steal a prescription sleeping pill from her father but he catches her. As a last straw, Hugh demands that David stop seeing Jade until the end of the school term. Although initially causing a scene, Ann gently coaxes David to agree, telling him not to let Hugh "do something he'll regret".

Back at school, one of David's friends, Billy, tells him that when he was eight, he tried to burn a pile of newspapers, got scared and put the fire out, and his parents thought he was a hero for saving the house from burning. Inspired by this grim story, David starts a fire on the Butterfields' front porch after their late-night party and walks away. Unfortunately, by the time he returns, the flame has spread too far under the high wind. David immediately evacuates the Butterfields from the burning house before he is subsequently apprehended.

Following the trial, David is convicted of second-degree arson, sentenced to five years' probation, committed into a mental hospital for evaluation and forbidden to go anywhere near Jade or her family again. He continues to write her daily, but the letters are not sent because of the no-contact order. His parents pull strings to have him released early from the mental hospital, much to Hugh's chagrin. Meanwhile, David receives his many letters upon his exit, and after realizing why Jade never wrote back, he decides to pursue her although he knows it is a violation of his parole.

After the loss of their home, the Butterfields have moved from Chicago to Manhattan where Ann and Hugh file for divorce. In Manhattan, Ann tries to seduce David but he refuses, leaving her confused. When she is not looking, he thumbs through her address book, finding out where Jade is and discovers that she now attends the University of Vermont. Intent on catching a bus to Vermont, David sees Hugh on the street. He starts chasing him, and Hugh is hit by a car and killed. Hugh's fiance Ingrid arrives to the scene just in time to see David leaving. He comes close to boarding the bus to Vermont, but is overcome with grief and returns to Ann's apartment and consoles her.

Later, Jade goes to David's room to say goodbye but he pulls her back as she tries to leave, throwing her on the bed and holding her down until she admits she loves him. Keith goes to David's to find them together again and tells Jade that David is at fault for their father's death. She refuses to believe it at first but when he confirms that David was actually at the scene, she becomes horrified and hides behind Keith. Trying to explain, David shoves Keith out of the way in a desperate bid to get to her. Keith holds him off until the police arrive and arrest David for brawling, disturbing the peace and violating his parole.

David is sentenced to five years in a state prison and despairs that he may never see Jade again. At a lakeside, Jade informs her mother that nobody will ever love her like David does, and Ann speaks her understanding and approval. From behind bars, David sees Jade approach him through his barred cell window to comfort him.

Endless Love is based on Scott Spencer's 1979 novel of the same name. The film is directed by Franco Zeffirelli and written by Judith Rascoe. The film stars Brooke Shields and Martin Hewitt in the two leading roles. It is also the film debut of Hewitt, Tom Cruise, Jami Gertz, Jeff Marcus and Ian Ziering. Principal photography of this film began on September 22, 1980 and shot on location in Chicago, New York City, and Long Island as well on set at Astoria Studios in Queens, New York. Production of this film was finished on December 19, 1980.[3]

The MPAA awarded the initial cut of Endless Love an X rating. Director Franco Zeffirelli subsequently made several cuts in the love scenes between Brooke Shields and Martin Hewitt to achieve a lower rating. The film was re-submitted to the MPAA five times before they awarded it an R rating.[4]

The film received mostly negative reviews upon its release. Roger Ebert compared the film unfavorably with the novel, describing Martin Hewitt as miscast and criticizing the narrative, although he did praise Brooke Shields' performance:

Is there anything good in the movie? Yes. Brooke Shields is good. She is a great natural beauty, and she demonstrates, in a scene of tenderness and concern for Hewitt and in a scene of rage with her father, that she has a strong, unaffected screen acting manner. But the movie as a whole does not understand the particular strengths of the novel that inspired it, does not convince us it understands adolescent love, does not seem to know its characters very well, and is a narrative and logical mess.[7]

In 2014, Scott Spencer, the author of the novel on which the film was based, wrote, "I was frankly surprised that something so tepid and conventional could have been fashioned from my slightly unhinged novel about the glorious destructive violence of erotic obsession".[10] Spencer described the film as a "botched" job and wrote that Franco Zeffirelli "egregiously and ridiculously misunderstood" the novel.[11]

The film's theme song, written by Lionel Richie and performed by Richie and Diana Ross and also called "Endless Love", became a number 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and was the biggest-selling single in Ross' career. Billboard magazine chose it as "The Best Duet of All Time" in 2011, 30 years after its debut. It spent nine weeks at #1 and received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for "Best Original Song", along with five Grammy Award nominations. The soundtrack peaked at #9 on the Billboard Top 200 and was certified platinum. It also featured a second duet between Ross and Richie, "Dreaming of You", that received considerable airplay but was never released as a single.

Jade Butterfield: My first love was everything all at once. The kind you never fall back from. Never try to. Never want to. A love so big. So strong. It never dies. Never fades. Never loses its electricity. The kind of love you fight for. The kind of boy you fight for.

"Endless Love" is a song written by Lionel Richie and originally recorded as a duet between Richie and singer/actress Diana Ross. In this ballad, the singers declare their "endless love" for one another. It was covered by Luther Vandross with R&B-pop singer Mariah Carey, and also by country music singer Shania Twain. Richie's friend (and sometimes co-worker) Kenny Rogers also recorded the song. Billboard has named the original version as the greatest song duet of all time.[2]

Ross and Richie recorded the song for Motown, and it was used as the theme for Franco Zeffirelli's film adaptation of Scott Spencer's novel Endless Love. (Jamie Bernstein, as the character Susan, sings the song during the course of the movie.) Produced by Richie and arranged by Gene Page, it was released as a single from the film's soundtrack in 1981. While the film Endless Love was a modest box-office success, the song became the second-biggest selling single of the year (first was "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes) in the United States and reached number one on the Hot 100, where it stayed for nine weeks from August 15 to October 10, 1981. It also topped the Billboard R&B chart and the Adult Contemporary chart, and reached number seven in the United Kingdom. It also became the most successful duet of the rock era, surpassing the Everly Brothers' 1957 hit "Wake Up Little Susie", which spent four weeks at number one. Both songs spent six months on the chart, with "Endless Love" eclipsing the Everlys' hit by one week.[3]

The soulful composition became the biggest-selling single of Ross's career, and her 18th and final career number-one single in the USA (including her work with the Supremes). It is also Richie's best-charting single, and the first of several hits for him during the 1980s. The song was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Richie, and was the second song with which Ross was involved that was nominated for an Oscar. It also won a 1982 American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single. Ross recorded a solo version of the song for her first RCA Records album, Why Do Fools Fall in Love, the duet version being her last hit on Motown. Richie's solo version was released as track 10 on the 2003 remastered bonus edition of his 1982 album.

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