REVIEWS NO TY RE D RE TR EA D
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. Elle Fanning voices Felicie Jason Statham plays Deckard Vin Diesel as Dom and Charlize Theron as Cipher
BALLERINA (U) HH HHH BALLERINA is a cloying computeranimated fable, which grooves enthusiastically through dance movie cliches, including a montage of the heroine honing her craft, and last-minute doubts on the eve of an important audition for The Nutcracker.
Animation is somewhat crude, but whenever visuals lack detail and richness, vocal performances compensate with gushing emotion. Mawkish sentiment pirouettes alongside narrative contrivance, set to an anachronistic soundtrack of upbeat contemporary pop songs. Bryan Cranston as Ned Fleming and James Franco as Laird Mayhew Dwayne Johnson as Hobbs Michelle Rodriguez as Letty
WHY HIM? (15) HH HHH WHY Him? is Meet The Parents with a generational twist which casts James Franco, once again, as a gurning goofball, who is several baubles short of a decked tree. He flashes almost every inch of his body in pained service of laughter, while Oscar nominee Bryan Cranston forlornly attempts to inject gravitas to his scenes.
It’s impossible to discern method in the screenwriters’ madness. Time and again, the film aims low for laughs. Miraculously, a few of the politically incorrect gags hit their target and co-stars Megan Mullally and Michael Key scene-steal mercilessly with perfectly timed physical humour.