Endless

Riley and Chris are together at the end of school and about to go to different universities. One night they crash. Riley survives; Chris does not. But Chris does not leave. He stays after his death, can see her, and at some point they find a way to reach each other. The problem is that the connection prevents either of them from moving on. Scott Speer directs. Alexandra Shipp plays Riley and Nicholas Hamilton plays Chris. The idea is grief. The ghost story is not horror here but the concrete form of being unable to let go; Chris's suspension and Riley's guilt are built as the same thing. The narrative follows the teen romance template and leans on the known instances of it, a line running from Ghost to If I Stay, and it does not step outside that line. What holds it up is Alexandra Shipp's performance. The character's grief is played more convincingly than the shape of the film allows for. The design of the afterlife is weak. The rules keep changing and what is possible differs from scene to scene, and the narrative never explains the inconsistency. Who it is for: viewers who like teen romantic drama and fantasy built on grief. Who it is not for: the template is entirely familiar, the dialogue is weak, and the last section overloads the emotion.