The Sense of an Ending

After somewhat iffy reviews and some discouraging interviews I was really pleased by this movie. The novel has great depth and touches on weighty topics, leaving certain unresolved issues in its wake. Payne (scriptwriter) and Batra take on a very challenging job and with the help of a stellar cast they make as good an adaptation as anyone could reasonably expect. Broadbent is magnificent as the male lead and all the female ones are excellent. The cinematography is outstanding with some exterior shots that take your breath away, indeed Batra lingers on them a bit too long, though one can see why!

There is a good deal to admire. The interweaving of past and present is highly skilled, the recreation of sixties milieus authentic. The school scenes rang true - I went to an all boys grammar school in the sixties and they get it right with the exception of the swearing. Incredible as it may seem to some people, swearing was unusual fifty years ago. I loved the way the painful weekend at Chislehurst - central to the mystery - was handled.

There were a few lapses of judgement and taste but overall I would rate this as one of the best movies I have seen in the past year. It deserves awards.

Based on the Booker Prize-winning novella by Julian Barnes (which I have read), inevitably this film adaptation is different from the original work. The structure of the book was a section of the (unreliable) narrator's time at school and university followed by the present day coming to terms with revelations of that earlier period. The film is set in the present with lots of flash-backs to the past and that works well.

More questionably, the movie version of "The Sense Of An Ending" has a different ending which is not that of the author Julian Barnes or even that of the scriptwriter, the playwright Nick Payne, but essentially that of the director, Indian film-maker Ritesh Batra (who made the delightful work "The Lunchbox"). The film offers us a conclusion which is more definitive and more upbeat that the novel but that is perhaps the nature of this different medium.

"The Sense Of An Ending" is slow and serious but not all films can be "Fast And Furious". The pacing allows the viewer to admire the wonderful acting, primarily from Jim Broadbent as the narrator, retired and divorced Tony Webster, but also from some fine actresses, notably Charlotte Rampling, Harriet Walter and Emily Mortimer, plus some new young actors.

Like the source novel, this film is a challenging and moving examination of the malleability of memory. As Tony puts it: 'How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts?' How often indeed ...

Everyone is a storyteller in their own way. Some use the big screen, others a book or a painter's canvas, but most of us tell stories to ourselves. In 1967, acclaimed literary theorist Professor Frank Kermode published a seminal book called The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction. He argued that we all internally write the fictions of our lives into a coherent pattern so things appear to have a logical beginning, a middle and an ending. We do this for one simple reason: to make it possible to "coexist with temporal chaos" and to "humanise the common death". This philosophical insight inspired the 2011 Julian Barnes novel of the same name that is now adapted in the film The Sense of an Ending (2017). Joining these dots help us to understand what this film is about.

The film plot is simple but the story complex. Retired divorcée Tony (Jim Broadbent) is known as a curmudgeon by his ex-wife Margaret (Harriet Walter) and daughter Suzie (Michelle Dockery). He busies himself in his tiny shop selling second-hand Leica cameras when one day a lawyer's letter arrives that reopens memories of his first love. What follows is a jigsaw of glimpses into an old man's obsessive quest for redemption as he becomes haunted by an act of spite that he believes led to the suicide of his best friend. When he renews contact with his first love Veronica (Charlotte Rampling) he must confront unresolved emotions that were buried beneath the fictions he has constructed about his life.

This slow and serious film is not for everyone. Younger people are too busy making memories to be rewriting the story of their lives. Older audiences will recognise what Tony is experiencing and empathise with his need for a 'sense of an ending'. Despite the film's stellar cast and fine acting, none of the characters are especially likable, so it is possible to leave this film disengaged with the people while having been thoroughly immersed in the story. This is a well-directed dialogue-driven film. Its multiple flashbacks capture the disjointed half recalled fragments that many of us store as life memories. Most of all, it is an introspective and insightful essay on how we make sense of our lives.

We all reminisce. Older people have more to mull over than their younger counterparts, but we all do it. To what extent are our memories accurate representations of what actually happened? And how do the things that we forget, choose to leave out or just misremember affect how we view our past – and our present? These are the kind of questions the British drama "The Sense of Ending" (PG-13, 1:48) so eloquently and engagingly poses. Based on the 2011 novel of the same name by famed British author Julian Barnes (who won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for the book), this film has the potential to entertain all Movie Fans – and give them plenty to think about, regardless where they are in their lives, but those contemplations will vary depending on the stage of life they occupy at the moment.

Tony Webster (Jim Broadbent) is a disagreeable, semi-retired 70-something curmudgeon living in London. He used to make his living as a doctor, but now he owns a small vintage camera shop. Tony is long divorced from Margaret Webster (Harriet Walker), but they remain quite friendly, mutually supporting their pregnant single daughter, Susie (Michelle Dockery from TV's "Downton Abbey"), and sometimes meeting to discuss their lives over a spot of tea. Obviously comfortable (if not entirely happy) living out the narrative of his life (as he sees it), Tony is about to be shaken out of his complacency.

Dr. Webster receives a letter informing him that he has been bequeathed an old diary by the recently departed mother of his college girlfriend. Questions abound. Tony wants to know whose diary it is. When he tells his ex-wife about the letter, she's curious why the mother of a long-lost love would be leaving him anything in her will. As Tony struggles with the family's lawyer to get his hands on the diary (or at least get some answers), he begins telling Margaret stories from a past that he has never before shared. She gets frustrated when she senses that he isn't telling her the whole story, while the audience is left to wonder what he's leaving out, why he's leaving things out and if he even realizes he's doing it.

Tony's story slowly unfolds (and is later revisited and built upon) in flashbacks throughout the movie. As a young man, Tony (played during his school days and college years by Billy Howle) begins dating the young, fetching and quirky Veronica Ford (Freya Mavor). As they figure out how they really feel about each other and where their relationship is going, Tony spends a weekend at her family's country cottage, where Tony hits it off with Veronica's mother, Sarah (Emily Mortimer). Eventually (not a spoiler – it's in the theatrical trailer), young Tony's best friend, the very intelligent but very maudlin Adrian Finn (Joe Alwyn) emerges as a rival for Veronica's affections. As a mystery unravels both in old Tony's rearview mirror and in his present, he finds old Veronica (Charlotte Rampling) and demands answers.

"The Sense of an Ending" is a relatable, entertaining and thought-provoking character-driven drama. This impressive collection of English thespians all give heart-felt and layered performances, while Nick Payne's script and Ritesh Batra's direction sensitively and insightfully develop the story, but still leave room for individual interpretations. How a person sees this film will have as much to do with his or her age, perceptions and individual experiences as the story itself. And when all is said and done, the film's ending still leaves room for discussion among Movie Fans. Rather than a clearly defined ending, we get… the sense of an ending. Or is it a beginning? It's for each of you to decide for yourselves. Getting there does require you to go along for the ride on a slow-moving cinematic train, but it's well worth the journey – especially since you may be surprised where you end up. "A-"

If you've ever said (or done) something to a friend and regretted it later, if you thought you knew the way things were (and found they were not that way), if you've found, as you get older, that things you thought far in your past have resurfaced, you might be as impressed with "The Sense of An Ending" as I was, watching it in an advance screening tonight.

Then, even if those things are not true for you, you might enjoy the cast and their acting, the writing, the London settings and many other things about this film. A good one.