YMMV / Endless Love

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Three particular things get asked most often:
  • How are we supposed to see David? He offers us his account of what happens, but for all we know there could be lots of things he isn't telling us, and these could be quite important. To add to this is how much people question about the love David had for Jade, and how far over the line from love to obsession he had gone.
  • Another question asked is whether Jade is actually worth any effort at all. How can a woman and girl be worth so much, when she seems mostly just plain and not really worthy of attention? This one is very deliberately fed by Spencer though, as he purposefully never tries to convince us that she IS worth it.
  • Another question asked is whether David's parents are abusive or not, as they could maybe have intervened before the start of the book. Perhaps had they done so, David could have been able to forget about Jade in the first place. The incident late in the novel when David violently grabs his mother's neck during an argument definitely hints at some genuine strife between him and his parents.
  • When Geek Juice riffed the 1981 film, the guys came to the conclusion that the reason Keith is frequently shirtless is because he's a werewolf.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: In the novel, since David is narrating the story, we don't really learn the exact diagnosis of his mental problems, but he's clearly The Sociopath and has strong hints of obsessive-compulsive disorder too. His trouble reading social cues and lack of emotion also suggest his being on the Autism Spectrum.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The 1981 film adaptation, while a big hit in its day, is now best known for its theme song and being Tom Cruise's first acting role, and many people watch it only for those elements.
• Memetic Mutation: The Cinema Snob drawing attention to the 1981 film's tagline ("She's 15, he's 17. It's the love every parent fears.") has led to the spawning of many, many parodies of said tagline.
• Moral Event Horizon: It's not hard to see David having gone right past this from the very moment we meet him, due to him burning down Jade's house, with the rest of the story is his remorse over him doing so.
• Questionable Casting: The Cinema Snob wondered why James Spader wasn't cast as David, despite being a way more charismatic actor "who could have romantic chemistry with a ferrett". He also felt that Tom Cruise would have been a better choice.
  Snob: Actor Martin Hewitt actually beat out five thousand other people for this part. Wow, who were those 4,999 other people, serial killers?
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • The 1981 film is the film debut of Tom Cruise, appearing in one scene playing a guy who talks to David about a fire, which unwittingly ends up giving David the idea to burn Jade's house down. And yes, said scene ends with Cruise's character running away.
  • Also in the 1981 film, Ian Ziering (Steve Sanders from Beverly Hills, 90210) plays Jade's younger brother Sammy.
  • James Spader (credited as "Jimmy Spader") appears in his first major film role as Jade's brother Keith.
• The Scrappy: From the 1981 film adaptation, Jade's mother Ann, who is meant to come across as a Reasonable Authority Figure in contrast to her husband. However, her unhealthy desire to be with her daughter's boyfriend, to the point of watching them have sex and actually making a move on him when they reunite two years later meant that she was liked by pretty much no one and just came off as creepy. If anything, she makes Hugh look like a far more sensible parent in comparison (the novel paints her more as David's older Distaff Counterpart—like him, smart, but also very self-absorbed and irresponsible).
• Squick: Sex during a period happens in a key scene in the novel, and is deliberately given a detailed, gory description, taking up a good portion of a chapter.

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