THE SENSE OF AN ENDING
ELEGANTLY adapted from Julian Barnes’ 2011 Booker Prize-winning novel by award-winning British playwright Nick Payne, The Sense Of An Ending is a delicately calibrated drama about a retired father, whose cosy suburban bubble is burst by evidence of a misdeed from his university days.
In director Ritesh Batra’s elegiac film, this ticking time bomb detonates with devastating force, driving a quietly spoken, unassuming man to stalk an old flame he wronged 50 years earlier.
Oscar winner Jim Broadbent is the film’s emotional core, delivering a subtle, nuanced performance that radiates calm when events around him seem to be spiralling out of control.
Anthony Webster (Broadbent) spends lazy days behind the counter of his vintage camera shop and long lunch breaks with ex-wife Margaret (Walter), with whom he is on amicable terms.
Their daughter Susie (Michelle Dockery) is heavily pregnant and Anthony attends antenatal classes in place of her partner.
Out of the blue, he receives a letter from a solicitor to inform him that the mother of his one-time girlfriend Veronica (Charlotte Rampling), has left him a treasure in her will. The bequest turns out to be the diary of his school chum Adrian Finn (Joe Alwyn), who committed suicide at university after he became one point of a messy love triangle with Anthony and Veronica.
Reluctantly, Anthony harks back to his adolescence when he fell head over heels for the young Veronica (Freya Mavor) and holidayed with her family.
“Does it have to head somewhere, our relationship?” says Veronica, sowing the seeds of jealousy and rejection that will sprout bitter, poisonous fruit.
The steady tick tock of time heals most wounds, but selective reminisce is a wonderful balm.