“How often do we tell our own life story.” So the main character muses. Tony Webster comes to doubt his recollection of his own life. Our story is simply the one we choose to tell – embellished, adjusted and ultimately modified to save face. The Sense of an Ending is based on the Man Booker Prize winning book by Julian Barnes. He’s an unreliable narrator something we’ve seen In Gone Girl as well as Girl On The Train. The only difference is that here the central character is a man.
One observation is that Veronica is Welsh and yet she speaks in haughty tones. Charlotte Rampling must appear to relish such roles. We saw her in 45 years and in this film she takes on a very similar role.
Billy Howie and Frey Mavor play and excel as the young Tony and Veronica. There are moments of distraction and aborted take off – I doubted Tony’s sexuality only to realise that this is not the actual story we should be focusing on. The Sense of an Ending is directed by Ritesh Batra and written for the screen by Nick Payne.
My first impression is it could have been tighter but then on reflection, you need that space to reflect and see just what the film is actually about. It’s an unreliable protagonist and Jim Broadbent excels in this role as someone looking back. It is the younger actors that draw you in.
The Sense of An Ending is available on DVD from 6 June 2017.
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Louise McLeod Tabouis 5th June 2017
Loved the book but the trailer doesn’t correspond at all to my memory of the story. Perhaps I should reread it.