Blast from the past rocks ageing shutterbug’s world in haunting English drama

REVIEW: Past comes back to haunt Jim Broadbent in this solid film adaptation of Julian Barnes’ Booker Prize-winning novel The Sense of An Ending.

THE SENSE OF AN ENDING

Three and a half stars

Director Ritesh Batra

Starring Jim Broadbent, Charlotte Rampling, Harriet Walter

Rating M

Running time 108 minutes

Verdict Secrets and lies

WHEN Tony Webster (Jim Broadbent) is bequeathed a diary by this first love’s mother, the ageing shutterbug is shocked out of his lonely complacence.

Even though said diary no longer exists (a nice twist), even the evocation of it acts like a blast from the past, sending fissures through the bedrock of Webster’s carefully constructed existence.

Memories resurface — via a series of flashbacks to school and university — and Webster is forced to question his version of events.

As his fiercely astute and extraordinarily tolerant ex-wife (Harriet Walter) points out, something must be niggling at him, since this is the first time he has confided in her about any of this.

Tony Webster (Jim Broadbent) is told his flashbacks must be niggling him by his ex wife Margaret (Harriet Walter).

Haunted by the past, Webster gets in contact with his old mates, who while reminiscing fill in some of the gaps.

They help him to reconnect with the young woman who broke his heart.

Charlotte Rampling, who plays Veronica, and Jim Broadbent in a scene from the film.

Now in her late 60s, Veronica (Charlotte Rampling) is none too pleased to see Webster, especially when she realises he has no intention of acknowledging his part in the events that unfolded.

But the diary, or Veronica’s mother (Emily Mortimer), has set something in motion.

Webster can’t rest until it’s been resolved — which is why he begins to stalk his long-ago girlfriend, an undignified and unsettling development that sees him overstep social boundaries and leap to false assumptions.

Ritesh Batra (The Lunchbox) directs this domestic English mystery with discipline and economy.

Broadbent is superb as the sympathetic curmudgeon who has got to retirement age without facing any difficult truths.

A nicely-judged film adaptation of Julian Barnes’ Man Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name that explores the unreliability of memory, the far-reaching consequences of youthful act of callousness and the value of owning up one’s to past mistakes.

The Sense of An Ending is now screening

Originally published as Blast from the past rocks ageing shutterbug’s world in haunting English drama