Review: The Sense of an Ending
Memories are not truths. They can be re-membered to lessen pain or heighten happiness or mitigate guilt or perhaps to provide some semblance of closure. Yet what happens when the past resurfaces and challenges those self-crafted fictions?
For Tony Webster (Jim Broadbent), the protagonist of The Sense of an Ending, adapted from Julian Barnes' 2011 Booker-winning novel by playwright Nick Payne, the past arrives in the form of a letter from the deceased mother of his first love, Veronica (played in flashbacks by Freya Manor and in present day by Charlotte Rampling). The letter is surprising not only to Tony, who learns that he has been left a diary belonging to his friend Adrian (Joe Alwyn), but also to Tony's ex-wife Margaret (Harriet Walter), who had no knowledge of this chapter of his life as he recounts it to her. As Tony tries to claim ownership of the diary from Veronica, who refuses to hand it over to him, the film slowly reveals how a tangled web of relationships led to tragedy.
The young Veronica was always an elusive object of desire for Tony, his passion for her equal only to his intense admiration for the brilliant but troubled Adrian, who would end up committing suicide during their time at university. Adrian and Veronica's relationship was a source of consternation for Tony, but was his bitter jealousy borne out of his love for Veronica or Adrian? What of Sarah (Emily Mortimer), who seemed to have been flirting with him when he met her for the first and last time? What of Sarah's warning about not letting Veronica get away with things? If Tony conveniently remembers certain incidents and forgets others, the older Veronica refuses to play along. The meat of the film is in their present-day face-to-face; this sequence could have been the entirety of the film so beautifully do Broadbent and Rampling convey a lifetime of conflicting emotions in this all-too-brief encounter.
Director Ritesh Batra has a lovely and delicate touch, but perhaps the narrative is a mite too opaque for the tale's themes to truly resonate. Nevertheless, the exemplary cast and the film's poignant undertones make it worth a watch. Broadbent, in particular, truly anchors the film with his carefully calibrated performance as Tony travels down the rabbit hole of his own narcissism.
The Sense of an Ending
Directed by: Ritesh Batra
Written by: Nick Payne; adapted from the novel by Julian Barnes
Starring: Jim Broadbent, Charlotte Rampling, Harriet Walter, Michelle Dockery, Joe Alwyn, Matthew Goode, Emily Mortimer, James Wilby, Edward Holcroft, Billy Howle, Freya Mavor
