Toronto Film Festival Official Site
September 1999
By Piers Handling

TITLE: Forever Mine

DIRECTOR: Paul Schrader
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
YEAR: 1999
TIME: 115 minutes
FILM TYPE: Colour/35mm

SCREENING TIMES: Sunday, September 12, 1999 8:45 PM VARSITY 8
Thursday, September 14, 1999 9:30 AM VARSITY 8

PRODUCTION COMPANY: Moonstar Entertainment/Panico Studio 1
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Julia Palau, Matthew Payne
PRODUCER: Damita Nikapota, Kathleen Haase, Amy J. Kaufman
SCREENPLAY: Paul Schrader
CINEMATOGRAPHY: John Bailey, A.S.C.
EDITOR: Kristina Boden
PRODUCTION DESIGNER: François Séguin
SOUND: Paul P. Soucek
MUSIC: Angelo Badalamenti
PRINCIPAL CAST: Joseph Fiennes, Ray Liotta, Gretchen Mol

Over the years, Paul Schrader has turned from one of the finest screenwriters of his generation into a director with a very individual stamp. A masterful storyteller, he often captures characters at war with themselves. With Forever Mine, Schrader reaches new creative heights, drawing on an intimate knowledge of movie history to evoke a luscious and dreamy tale of intrigue and the power of enduring love. His cinemascope images, conscious colour design and mesmerizing music immerse us in a romantic world which eventually bumps up against harsher realities.

Alan (Joseph Fiennes) is an idealistic cabana boy working at a Key Biscayne hotel. Mark (Ray Liotta) and Ella (Gretchen Mol) are staying there on holidays. Alan is smitten with Ella from the moment he sees her appear, like a modern Aphrodite from the waves. While the sleazy Mark is oblivious to everything but his own affairs, the naive and pure Ella is wooed by Alan. He believes he has found the woman of his dreams, but he is a mere hotel employee; she is married to a wealthy, successful man.

When Mark and Ella's vacation ends, Alan follows them to New York, imploring her to leave her husband to fulfill her destiny of being with the one man who truly loves her. What ensues is the stuff of melodrama: illicit meetings, betrayal, murder, identity changes and a love affair that plays out over a 17-year period. The dynamics set in motion in Florida, when a romantic cabana boy fell in love with a beautiful married woman, come back to haunt everyone.

Joseph Fiennes, fresh from the success of Shakespeare in Love, captures the many moods of the love-struck Alan. Gretchen Mol, Lana Turner-esque blonde, is superb as the woman caught in the middle, and Ray Liotta plays the betrayed husband with the perfect touch of evil. John Bailey's breathtaking cinematography drenches us in Florida light and interior shadows, but it is Paul Schrader's elegant script and direction, tied to his evident love of Sirkian melodrama, which proves irresistible. This film comes to the Festival straight from the lab, with some small finishing touches still to be completed.