The Sense of an Ending

Last summer I read the best-selling novel The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes and in my review I wrote that people would either love it or hate it.  I loved it and so I have been eagerly anticipating the film adaptation.  After seeing it last night, I have the same assessment of the film as I did of the novel.  It is definitely not for everyone but it is a poignant exploration of one man's life as he is forced to reexamine the past after receiving an unexpected letter.  Jim Broadbent is Tony Webster and Charlotte Rampling plays Veronica Ford, Tony's girlfriend at university.  Their story, as Tony remembers it, is told through a series of flashbacks, with Billy Howle and Freya Mavor playing the younger characters, as Tony recounts the story to his ex-wife (an amusing Harriet Walter).  Then their story, as it really happened, is revealed as Tony arranges a series of meetings with Veronica.  As he sheds his delusions about the kind of person he was and is, he begins to make amends with the people in his life, namely his ex-wife and pregnant daughter (Michelle Dockery).  I really enjoyed this character study because I think that we all view our pasts the way we need to in order to validate our opinions of ourselves.  Jim Broadbent is marvelous (I think that his portrayal of Tony is much more sympathetic than the character is written on the page) and Charlotte Rampling, once again, gives a haunting performance.  I highly recommend this film but, because the mystery unfolds very slowly, I recognize that many might find it to be tedious.

Note:  My favorite line in the film comes when the young Tony goes home with Veronica to meet her parents.  Her mother asks him what he hopes to do with an undergraduate degree in English literature.  I laughed out loud...