Dying Young: Shipp brings conviction to "Endless," an otherwise bland YA verison of "Ghost"

Endless (2020)

95 min.

Release Date: August 14, 2020 (Digital & On Demand)

Not all beautiful teen tearjerkers are created equal. “Endless” is surprisingly not another Nicholas Sparks adaptation, nor is it based on a best-selling YA novel, but director Scott Speer (2018’s “Midnight Sun”) and screenwriters Andre Case and Oneil Sharma pretty much rework 1990’s “Ghost” and, if you really want to keep going, perhaps 1998's “What Dreams May Come,” 2010's “Charlie St. Cloud,” and 2014's “If I Stay” as well. It’s a myopic high school romance prematurely cut short by a tragedy that then becomes a literal-minded metaphor for coping and the grief process. Teenage girls will find “Endless” to be a profoundly aching and meaningful love story to remember, but in spite of an affecting performance by Alexandra Shipp, this dead-teenager weeper is mostly bland and hokey. 

Riley (Alexandra Shipp) and Chris (Nicholas Hamilton) shouldn’t make sense as a couple, but they are high school seniors in love. Riley is college-bound, if pressured a bit by her parents (Ian Tracey, Catherine Lough Haggquist) to pursue law, but her true passion is drawing and creating her own graphic novels. Living with his working-class single mother (Famke Janssen), the leather jacket-wearing Chris rides and works on his motorcycle. When Riley receives her acceptance letter to dream school Georgetown University, she spills the news at a party. Chris is worried they won’t last if she goes and gets too drunk to drive. Riley ends up borrowing a friend’s car to drive them, only to get in an accident. When she comes to in the hospital, Chris did not survive the crash; he can still see Riley and everyone else, but Chris himself cannot be seen or heard. His soul is stuck in limbo, and every chance Chris is able to communicate with Riley when she taps into her creative side, she gets a little too close to the other side. 

Alexandra Shipp (2018's "Love, Simon") is the kind of young actress who is already capable of making anything better than it has any right to be. Not only lovely and photogenic, Shipp brings total conviction and emotional weight to Riley’s loss and struggle to let go of her first love. Admittedly, the tepid script just doesn’t always match Shipp’s level. Riley and Chris are basically likable characters, however, their relationship is just a nice and overwhelmingly new kind of first love. Nicholas Hamilton (2017’s “It”) is fine as ill-fated rebel Chris, but his scenes with Jordan (DeRon Horton), his smooth-talking tour guide of sorts through limbo, are far less compelling than anything with Riley. 

When the film puts the the half-dead, half-living romance on the back burner, it flirts with a different idea of interest, like the possibility of Riley being held accountable for the accident and feeling so much guilt. A detective (Patrick Gilmore) shows up a couple of times to take down Riley’s statement—was she texting while driving or not?—but that subplot gets wrapped up pretty quickly since there's no actual suspense. A bewigged Famke Janssen also emerges very well, giving a wrenchingly grounded turn, even in an underdeveloped role as Chris’ mother Leigh, who in one jarring jump cut has her practically teleporting. Except for Alexandra Shipp finding palatable, even moving moments in this mawkish material, “Endless” is just not special enough to effectively manipulate one on an emotional level. 

Grade: C +