Something rare in British cinema these days; a highly intelligent, highly literate film based on a highly intelligent and literate book by Julian Barnes, (it won the Man Booker Prize). It's one of those films in which people think everything out before acting on their feelings, sometimes shelving their feelings altogether in favour of a purely intellectual approach. It's mostly told in flashbacks by Jim Broadbent's cynical old curmudgeon to his ex-wife Harriet Walter as he recounts the events of his past and his relationships with a potentially unstable girl, her family and his best friend.Dramatically not a great deal happens and yet, as they say, all human life is here but it is so well written, acted and directed you cling to every word and it's a real pleasure to hear such good dialogue delivered as beautifully as it is here. Broadbent hasn't been this good in years and Walters is wonderful as his ex-wife while Charlotte Rampling, in what is really just a cameo, is her usual outstanding self as the older version of Broadbent's first love. The younger players are also very fine; Billy Howle as the young Broadbent, Joe Alwyn as the friend, Downton's Michelle Dockery as a heavily pregnant daughter. It's also very touching and very funny; something of a real treat in fact.

I was skeptical that a film could capture the essence and the mystery of the book. However I found it very satisfying. I am not sure how I would rate the film if I had not read the book. It is a simple story and indeed one could complain that its focus on white middle aged Londoners but that would be missing the point of the universality of the story. We all create the story of our lives through our memories and by using the plot device of such a traumatic awakening of forgotten memories causes us to consider the things we have remembered selectively. I am still unsure what the significance of the twist at the end adds to the message or the theme, except to add to the tragedy of situation and increase the guilt of the main character. As a film experience, the acting was first class and the pace and use of music well matched. As a final thought I would consider whether we should also draw lessons from Adrian's actions versus his earlier comments about suicide. A film that gives you prompt and room to think. A rarity these days and to be welcomed.

There is a fine line between enigmatic and tedious and this film is right on the line. Stunning cast but too much swapping between the present and the past, too many white, middle class, unpleasant characters. The 'change' in the main character felt tacked on and implausible. Why were the lesbians a joke? Is this the new way to deal with lesbians on film, to include them but make them a bit of a joke? I disliked the feeling that young Veronica was 'cold' because she did not put out. If I was meant to be struggling as I left the cinema and indeed for much of the night then the film succeeds but I did not like it.

This very quiet, sensitive and mesmerizing film adaptation of Julian Barnes' 2011 magnum opus THE SENSE OF AN ENDING has been adapted for the screen by Nick Payne and directed by Ritesh Batra. The magic of the novel remains intact despite the need to move form time period to time period (youth to old age) that often can disrupt the flow of a message. This is doubtless the combination of the director's sensibilities coupled with an extraordinary cast of some of England's finest actors.This intense story follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony Webster (Jim Broadbent) thought he'd left all this behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage (to Harriet Walker) and family (lesbian pregnant daughter Michelle Dockery) and career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement. But he is then presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety of things he thought he'd understood all along, and to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world. The interweaving of Tony's memories of his past (Billy Howle as the young Tony) as altered by the present struggle to attain a diary left to him by the mother (Emily Mortimer) of his old flame Veronica (Charlotte Rampling) that contained information of his 'affair' with the young Veronica (Freya Mavor) and her eventual husband Adrian Finn (Joe Alwyn) who committed suicide apparently after receiving a letter of hurt from Tony make Tony as an older man reconsider the facts of his life.The film is blessed with a stellar cast and with stunning psychological and emotional depth and sophistication. The film is long, cerebral, and requires involvement on the part of the audience to fully appreciate the subtleties of Julian Barnes original novel. Highly Recommended.