The Sense of an Ending | Film review - Adroit Julian Barnes adaptation

Do we really know our loved ones?

Jim Broadbent’s divorced sixtysomething Tony leads an existence of curmudgeonly contentment until the arrival of a lawyer’s letter stirs up memories of his school and university days, and his tangled friendships with brilliant classmate Adrian and first love Veronica.

This adroit adaptation of Julian Barnes’ Booker Prize-winning novel The Sense of an Ending starts out as a fairly low-key portrait of mundane middle-class London life and turns into a gripping psychological mystery as Broadbent’s self-absorbed, emotionally myopic protagonist slowly unpicks his flawed memories of his younger self.

Broadbent is on fine crotchety form. And he gets excellent support from Harriet Walter (Tony’s patient ex-wife), Michelle Dockery (his pregnant daughter) and Charlotte Rampling (the older Veronica), whose presence calls to mind 45 Years, another recent British film in which middle-class characters in late-middle age come to count the cost of raking over the past.

Certificate 15. Runtime 108 mins. Director Ritesh Batra

The Sense of an Ending available on Digital Download. Released on Blu-ray & DVD on 14 August by StudioCanal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TbmL_iQbxA

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.