Review: The Sense of an Ending – “An agreeable way to pass a couple of hours”

Just in time for Easter weekend, comes this pleasant, quiet watch, bringing together some of Britain’s best screen talent.

Jim Broadbent’s Tony is a retired divorcee leading a quiet life in London in understated drama, The Sense of an Ending. When the mother of Tony’s university girlfriend dies, he is surprised to learn she left him something in his will; the diary of the best friend from his youth. Now in the possession of the girlfriend he once had, Tony’s quest to acquire the diary leads him down a nostalgic path into his past, one which sees him reconnect with his former flame Veronica (Charlotte Rampling) for the first time in decades. Can he bare to face the truth of the actions he took so long ago? As the obsession with looking back into his past starts to take him over, Tony struggles to keep his eyes open to those around him, including his heavily pregnant daughter (Michelle Doherty) and ex-wife who is trying her best to be a friend to him.

The Sense of an Ending is a quiet drama; it’s one of those films that is easy to watch but also doesn’t leave you with a great sense of being entertained. It is more a study on nostalgia and memory – often selective – and may leave you looking back on events in your own life and how you choose to remember them. Roles are split 50/50 between the older actors of the present day, and their younger selves in the 1960s. Skins actress Freya Mavor excels as a young Veronica, embodying mystery and making us question her as much as a young, frustrated Tony does. Jim Broadbent shines as bright as ever, and is particularly well-suited to this nostalgic, somewhat forlorn character.

It won’t change your life, but it will provide an agreeable way to pass a couple of hours this Easter, and would be a lovely film to watch with parents.