'The End of The Affair' is a remake of an old-fashioned cinematic weeper for the romantic-at-heart. The story is based on British author Graham Greene's autobiographical book about a love affair he had with an American woman married to a wealthy British socialite.

Set before, during and after World War II in England, the movie chronicles the affair between Sarah Miles (Julianne Moore) and Maurice Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes). He is a writer and she is his mistress, married to a boring Henry Miles (Stephen Rea), a civil servant moving up the government ranks. How would you like to be Lady Miles, he asks. Not that she cares. Trapped in a loveless marriage, she pines for her former lover whom she cannot have. She dumped him two years ago after a fiery passionate affair. Why so? Well, it certainly wasn't that it finally dawned on her that she is a married woman. You see, she had made a promise to God that she would leave her lover if God would spare his life when he was almost killed by a bomb during the blitz on London. Only that it is a promise too difficult to keep.

Ralph Fiennes plays the brooding novelist who never got over his obsession for Sarah. He loved her, and he sort of hated her too for dumping him. Fiennes seemed to relish in playing the part of the lover to adulterous women. Remember 'The English Patient' where he had an affair with a married woman? That film too was set during the World War.

Anyway, back to the movie at hand. Both Fiennes and Moore gave pretty performances as pained lovers who wants to get their hands on each other but couldn't. Their performances here are more into pained and stoic expressions rather than ol' fashioned 'acting'. The film moves at a snail's pace and some would find this too slow and intolerable. My pal says that one has to have one's heart broken and shred into pieces to understand what the characters are going through, perhaps she is right. Though I find Moore's acting at some instances commendable, with the excellent pained expressions, I also do find it too stoic and lifeless in most instances as well.

The story is rather unbelievable in the sense that she leaves her diary lying around conspicuously and of course, Maurice got his hands on it and found out the real reasons why she left him. It just falls too squarely. Also the part where their bed scenes revolved around the London bomb blitzs. Hellooooo, the Germans are dropping bombs, get out of bed, for goodness sake!

An unsung character role by Ian Hart as private detective Mr Parkis is a breath of fresh air. He was hired by Maurice for Henry upon Henry's suggestion when he suspects that his wife is having an affair (nothing could be closer to the truth, she's having an affair with your good friend, you dim-wit). Maurice, having been dumped by Sarah, decides that she must be seeing someone else so Maurice hires the detective himself. And once Maurice started seeing Sarah again, the detective ends up spying on his own client. And it gets even more complicated. Throughout, Ian Hart is absolutely delightful as an awkward and tying oh so hard to be a meticulous and serious investigator who uses his son to tail Sarah.

It deserves to be mentioned that this film received two Academy Award nominations, for best cinematography and Julianne Moore for Best Actress.