December 13, 1999
Web posted at: 5:24 p.m. EST (2224 GMT)

By Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- Neil Jordan's "The End of the Affair" is an effective love story that's intensely old-fashioned, enough so to keep you chuckling when the drama starts to sag. It doesn't take supernatural powers to predict every third scene of Jordan's script. But the predictability is so blatant, you have to assume that the participants are in on the joke.

Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore play the lovers, and they're perfectly cast. They're both attractive without seeming sculpted, and they deliver sappy love-poetry dialogue with an admirable lack of smirking.

Based on a 1951 novel by Graham Greene, "The End of the Affair" is set in England during World War II, which means that the heated smooching is laced with air-raid sirens and buzz-bomb attacks.

This nudges it into prime date-movie territory. Guys will enjoy watching Moore strip down to nothing but her garters and a lustful gaze, followed in short order by an unexpected explosion. Women will groove to Fiennes' suave passion while gawking at his bare bottom. A bout of industrial-strength weeping closes the show, followed by audience members feeling foolish for allowing themselves to get sucked into it.

Fiennes basically plays Trevor Howard playing Maurice Bendix, an elegant writer who finds himself falling for Sarah Miles (Moore), a married woman. Maurice has been interviewing Henry Miles (Stephen Rea), a government official who's serving as inspiration for one of the characters in his new novel.

Henry is a considerate, dependable person, but he's more than a little bit of a schmuck. He's not good with warm declarations of affection, noting only that his wife is "a great help" to him. Henry really loves Sarah, but he's incapable of getting worked up over her beauty and strong-willed vitality. His idea of a make-out session is a peck on the cheek when he comes home from work. Then he has a cup of cocoa and retires to bed. Alone.

Moore's peaches-and-cream complexion is put to fine use by Jordan and cinematographer Roger Pratt. She glows radiantly in the film. Sarah hides the rest of her beautiful flesh beneath a wide variety of crisp, stylish dresses.

This is the kind of film in which the two leads repeatedly kiss in pouring rain while wearing spectacular period costumes. In fact, the clothes do as much to illuminate the characters as the dialogue does.

Fiennes' snap-brimmed hat is always cocked at a rakish angle, and his billowing overcoat gives him the look of a city-dweller who dreams of high-seas adventure. Moore's dresses might be sharply cut, but those naughty garters and silk stockings are the keys to Sarah's character. She's a far more sexual being than you might think on first glance. When the clothes slip away, it's almost as if she's shedding unwanted armor.

The film opens after much of the action has taken place. Most of the story is told from Maurice's point of view, via a long series of flashbacks.

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Henry has asked Maurice to discreetly hire a private detective for him. He thinks Sarah is being unfaithful, and he needs someone to discover the truth. It's never occurred to him that during the war she was having a passionate affair with the man to whom he's now opening up.

Maurice hires the investigator (Ian Hart, who adds a welcome touch of humor to the proceedings.) But he wants to find out who has taken his place in Sarah's life. Boring old Henry's feelings are little more than an afterthought.

The soap-opera aspects of the story are sometimes held in check, but Jordan is more likely to let the suds fall where they may. The melodrama is turned up to a fever pitch near the end, when the affair is re-examined through the pages of Sarah's secret diary.

Suffice it to say that, ahem, a sign from God is responsible for her decision to call off the clandestine relationship. And if you think that nagging cough that Sarah's been suppressing throughout the war will be held in check by periodic swigs on a bottle of Vicks 44, you obviously don't know how these things work. The only thing you can't see coming a mile away are the buzz-bombs.

There's not a single piece of profanity in "The End of the Affair," but that's balanced out by the love scenes. Fiennes and Moore aren't shy when it comes to a pretend, buck-naked romp. Old-fashioned or not, don't bring grandma if she has a weak heart. Rated R. 105 minutes.