THE SENSE OF AN ENDING [2016 / 2017] [Blu-ray] [UK Release] Based On The MAN BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING Novel by Julian Barnes! A Story That Will Stay With You Forever!
Tony Webster (Academy Award® winner Jim Broadbent for ‘Paddington’ and ‘Bridget Jones’ Baby’) divorced and retired, leads a reclusive and relatively quiet life.
One day, Tony Webster learns that the mother of his university girlfriend, Veronica, left in her will a diary kept by his best friend who dated Veronica after she and Tony Webster parted ways. Tony Webster’s quest to recover the diary, now in Veronica’s possession, forces him to revisit his flawed recollections of his friends and of his younger self. As he digs deeper into his past, it all starts to come back; the first love, the broken heart, the deceit, the regrets, the guilt... Can Tony Webster bear to face the truth and take responsibility for the devastating consequences of actions he took so long ago?
Based on the MAN BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING novel by Julian Barnes and with a stellar cast including Charlotte Rampling [‘45 Years’], Harriet Walter [‘Suite Francaise’ and ‘Atonement’], and Michelle Dockery [‘Downton Abbey’]. ‘THE SENSE OF AN ENDING’ is a deeply and uplifting story about the paths chosen in life, and the power of the memory, love and forgiveness.
FILM FACT: Awards and Nominations: 2017 Palm Springs International Film Festival: Win: Best Director for Ritesh Batra.
Cast: Jim Broadbent, Charlotte Rampling, Harriet Walter, Michelle Dockery, Matthew Goode, Emily Mortimer, James Wilby, Edward Holcroft, Billy Howle, Freya Mavor, Joe Alwyn, Peter Wight, Hilton McRae, Jack Loxton, Timothy Innes, Andrew Buckley, Karina Fernandez, Nick Mohammed, Charles Furness, Guy Paul, Oliver Maltman, David Horovitch, Alexa Davies, Evelyn Duah, Manjinder Virk, Dorothy Duffy, Kelly Price, Carol King, Beth Cleveley-Hutchinson, Joyia Fitch, Graham Evans, Imogen Roberts, Phillip Yeboah, Nathan Babb, Harvey Waterman, Owen Armstrong (uncredited), Gregor Babic (uncredited), Tashann Barnett (uncredited), Gintare Beinoraviciute (uncredited), Mark Brent (uncredited), Paul Croft (uncredited), Leigh Dent (uncredited), Laraine Dix (uncredited), Bron James (uncredited), Attila G. Kerekes (uncredited), Lachlan Moyle (uncredited), Marcus Payne (uncredited), Charlie Richards (uncredited), Tamara Sharpe (uncredited) and Marco Staines (uncredited)
Director: Ritesh Batra
Producers: Aaron Ryder, Ben Browning, Christine Langan, David M. Thompson, Ed Rubin, Ed Wethered, Glen Basner, Joanie Blaikie, Norman Merry, Milan Popelka and Sarada McDermott
Screenplay: Julian Barnes (novel) and Nick Payne (adaptation/screenplay)
Composer: Max Richter
Cinematography: Christopher Ross, B.S.C. (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audio: English: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
English: 2.0 LPCM Stereo Audio
English: 2.0 Audio Descriptions
Subtitles: English SDH
Running Time: 108 minutes
Region: Region B/2
Number of discs: 1
Studio: FILMNATION ENTERTAINMENT / ORIGINAL PICTURES / LYPSYNC / BBC Films / STUDIOCANAL
Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: ‘THE SENSE OF AN ENDING’ [2017] stars Academy Award® winner Jim Broadbent, alongside a stellar cast that includes Charlotte Rampling and Michelle Dockery, and ‘THE SENSE OF AN ENDING’ is based on the Man Booker Prize-winning novel by Julian Barnes. From acclaimed director Ritesh Batra, it is a deeply moving and uplifting story about the paths chosen in life, and the power of memory, love and forgiveness. How much do you trust your memories? Do you consider the events and perspectives you remember as gospel truth, or as more malleable, fickle things that bend and warp with time and shifting context?
At the start of the film the narrator and lead character Tony Webster [Jim Broadbent] spells out his life in a very profound quote and informs of some very wise words, by saying, “I am not very interested in my school days and feel no special nostalgia for them, but I remember sixth form. In those days we imagine ourselves as being in a holding pen [where livestock is temporarily confined], waiting to be released into our lives, and when that moment would come, we would be at University and how will we to know our lives have already begun. And our release will only be into a lager holding pen. When you are young, you want your emotions to be like the ones you read in books, you want them to overturn your life and to create a new reality. But as that second hand insists on speeding up and time delivers all too quickly into middle age and then old age. That’s when you want something a little milder, don’t you? You want your emotions to support your life as it has become. You want them to tell you that everything is going to become okay, and is there anything wrong in that. What if time could flow backwards, to remind us that our life is a story we have told to ourselves? And this is my story.”
Here we find mildly grumpy but mentally alert “curmudgeon” septuagenarian, who is an elderly divorcé Anthony “Tony” Webster [Jim Broadbent] who is divorced and retired, leads a very reclusive and relatively quiet life while maintaining a hole-in-the-wall second hand camera shop in London, that specialises in exclusive Leica models, and seems to live a contented if sedentary benign life, rising daily at 7:00am, coffee and his ex-wife, and periodic errands for his pregnant daughter.
However, one day a certified letter arrives notifying him that he has been named in the Last Will and Testament of the mother of his girlfriend, the Young Veronica [Freya Mavor], that he use to date at University and finds out that he has been left in her will a diary kept by his best friend who dated Veronica after she and Tony Webster parted ways. And so begins the trek back through Tony Webster’s history and memories.
Tony Webster decides to go on a quest is to recover the diary, now in possession the older Veronica Ford [Charlotte Rampling], forces Tony Webster to revisit his flawed recollections of his friends and of his younger self. As Tony Webster digs deeper into his past, it all starts to come back; the first love, the broken heart, the deceit, the regrets, the guilt. Can Tony Webster bear to face the truth and take responsibility for the devastating consequences of actions he took so long ago?
Although we do not know what Tony Webster believes led to his friend’s suicide, as the story unfolds it becomes clear that he is very much unaware of the repercussions of an explosively emotional letter he had sent to Adrian years ago. Indeed, we watch as Tony Webster uncovers a complex and disturbing truth in his search for the true narrative of what led to his best friend’s untimely death.
Tony Webster’s misapprehension centres on a false memory he has concerning the letter he sent to Adrian. As Tony Webster recounts it, the letter gave his blessing to the new relationship between Adrian and ex-girlfriend, Veronica. But he slowly learns that the letter he wrote was instead a vicious slur to his friend’s betrayal for engaging in a relationship with Veronica after their own break up. The letter, it transpires, led to a series of events that ended in Adrian’s suicide.
Director Ritesh Batra gracefully melds these twin timelines, both in furtive spurts from Tony Webster’s subconscious and in flashbacks. Nick Payne’s screenplay unwinds the details of this curious family entanglement, revealing in the momentary laughs and frustrations, but saving the full breadth of the story for its later revelations. As the film obfuscates certain details, meaning it tends to make something less clear and harder to understand, especially intentionally telegraphs a handful of coming twists with occasional overemphasis, but the visual representation of this journey through memory provides an anchor. Different characters hop across the boundaries of time in passing hallucinations, while some sounds do the same, dripping over conversations happening half a century later.
Despite Tony Webster’s cantankerous tendencies, Jim Broadbent brings great warmth to his character’s amateur sleuthing, even when those pursuits overstep the bounds of etiquette. As each step in reliving his past brings the man closer to a long-awaited reckoning, Broadbent tempers the dread with a muted longing that Tony Webster’s best efforts can’t hide. There’s hope and despair behind his eyes and in the most devastating scenes, they’re there in equal measure.
But despite the minor slip-ups, ‘THE SENSE OF AN ENDING’ understands the power of life’s totemic memories and the folly of indulging a narrow view of what make them so significant. Much like Max Richter’s dreamy and characteristically poetic music score, the story echoes through periods of discovery, loss, redemption and reconciliation without being dominated by any of them. Modest in its ambition but profound in its specificity, and director Ritesh Batra gets to the core of the slipperiness of memory and the allure of the past. It’s not through grand pronouncements and cosmic love stories; instead, a handful of unshakable moments do the trick.
But as the brilliant film comes to the finale conclusion, where all the loose ends are neatly tied up, we get a very profound quote from Tony Webster that really sums up the brilliant film, where he states, “How often do we tell our own lives story. How often do we adjust, embellish, and make sly cuts. The longer life goes on, the fewer of those around to tell us our life is not our life. It is just a story we’ve told about our lives today to others, but mainly to ourselves.” Which I feel sums up this very thought provoking and smart piece of translation of this film and life in general, which is helped by the equally impressive director Ritesh Batra who has given us an impressively directed drama that is heightened by a terrific main central performance from Jim Broadbent, and an equally intelligent script that nails the emotional essence of Julian Barnes's novel that I feel at the end of the film that I have witness something really special that deserves another viewing to take in all the twists and turns of the life of Tony Webster.
THE SENSE OF AN ENDING MUSIC TRACK LISTING
PSYCHOTIC REACTION (Written by Sean Byrne / John Michalski / Craig Atkinson / Ken Ellner / Roy Chaney) [Performed by Count Five]
THERE WAS A TIME (Written by Donovan) [Performed by Donovan]
THIS IS THE NIGHT (Written by M. Walton / J. Duncan / L. Fuller / H. Dunham) [Performed by The Vocaleers]
IF I HAD YOU (Written by Jimmy Campbell / Reg Connelly / Ted Shapiro)
OH COME BACK BABY (Written by Zell Sanders) [Performed by Ada Ray]
WITH A GIRL LIKE YOU (Written by Reg Presley) [Performed by The Troggs]
CHILLS & FEVER (Written by Rosa La King) [Performed by Freddie Houston]
A H.M DIDDLE DEE DOO (Written by J. Cassese / M. Mincieli / V. Narcardo / F. Reina / N. Santa Maria) [Performed by The Capris]
TIME HAS TOLD ME (Written by Nick Drake) [Performed by Nick Drake]
TIME IS ON MY SIDE (Written by Jerry Ragovoy) [Performed by Irma Thomas]
SANDVIKEN (Written by M. Norberg / T. Widman / M. Johansson / N. Wennerstrand / C. Kolbaek-Jensen) [Performed by YAST]
BACK O’ TOWN BLUES (Written by Luis Russell / Louis Armstrong) [Performed by Earl Hines]
THE SOUL SERENE (Live!) (Written by Conor O'Brien) [Performed by Villagers]
Slavonic Dance No 7 in c minor, op. 46 (uncredited) (Written by Antonín Dvorák) [Music on the CD Tony puts on before he sits down to read the morning paper]
* * * * *
Blu-ray Image Quality – STUDIOCANAL has once again brought out this Blu-ray disc in a stunning sumptuous 1080p image presentation that is helped with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. It’s an absolutely scrumptious transfer filled with gorgeous colour that’s deeply saturated but never overdone, and contrast that has been brought to perfection. Flesh tones look very natural and are very appealing, and it is all due the brilliant work of cinematography Christopher Ross. There really isn’t anything negative to say about this brilliant and sparkling image transfer. Contrast has also been applied spectacularly well to give the picture a consistent look that is rich and deep, which also gives the film its brilliant ambience viewing experience. Please Note: Playback Region B/2: This will not play on most Blu-ray players sold in North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Learn more about Blu-ray region specifications.
Blu-ray Audio Quality – STUDIOCANAL has given you a choice of several audio presentation that includes a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, 2.0 LPCM Stereo Audio and 2.0 Audio Descriptions. With particularly the 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio gives a much fuller rich and awesome aural experience to the listener. especially for a film with somewhat small intentions. There are several wonderfully entertaining uses of ambient sounds in the front and rear speakers, and dialogue is always easily discernible and is mostly located with the centre channel. The wonderful and very evocative background film music score by Max Richter gets an immersive presentation through the fronts and rears and really delivers very subtle throughout the film. Likewise, sound effects are effectively split when necessary and pan through the soundstage occasionally to great effect.
* * * * *
Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:
Special Feature: What Would You Tell Your 21-Year-Old Self? [2016] [1080p] [1.78:1 / 2.39:1] [1:01] Here we get a very short special feature, asking various members involved with the film what they would inform their own 21 year old self and some of their comments are quite interesting, despite being very short. Contributors include: Ritesh Batra [Director], Jim Broadbent [Tony Webster], Harriet Walter [Margaret Webster] and Billy Howle [Young Tony Webster].
Special Feature: Cast & Crew Interviews [2013] [1080p] [1.78:1] [107:12] With this special feature you get to view just over a shade of 117 minutes of Interviews that definitely rewards you with the patient, as you get some fascinating insights into the film from the people who were personally involved with the film, and includes 12 separate interviews. As you view the interviews they are broken up with lots of insert question headings which relate to all aspects of the film by the person doing the questioning and of course you can view them separately or Play All, which are as follows:
Ritesh Batra [3:15] / Jim Broadbent and Harriet Walter [4:19]
Billy Howle [3:46] / Charlotte Rampling [8:26]
Nick Payne [11:38] / Julian Barnes [3:36]
Michelle Dockery [17:37] / Joe Alwyn [12:30]
Emily Mortimer [9:35] / Freya Mavor [12:57]
David M. Thompson [18:52] / Ed Rubin [10:34]
SNEAK PEEKS: ‘FROM THE LAND OF THE MOON’ [2016] [1080p] [2.35:1] [1:48]; ‘THE LOST CITY OF Z’ [2016] [1080p] [2.35:1] [1:52]; ‘THE RED TURTLE’ [2016] [1080p] [1.85:1] [1:43] and ‘PADDINGTON 2’ [2017] [1080p] [2.40:1] [00:59].
Finally, more than anything, the film ‘THE SENSE OF AN ENDING’ reinforces director Ritesh Batra as a keen observer of small moments in people’s lives. The preparation of morning coffee and the addressing of a postcard are each delivered in sharply edited montages that delight us in the ordinary way and bring an unexpected vibrancy to the tiny rituals of everyday life. The constant focus on the humanity at its heart makes the sentimentality of this cross-generational story feel earned. And there’s patience within those observations. Despite the occasional narrative trickery that helps connect the young Tony with the old and director Ritesh Batra still finds time for a handful of uninterrupted conversations between strangers, lovers and old friends. All are captured from a safe distance, but with an unmoving camera that amplifies the tiny changes in each character that reverberate so strongly with each added piece of the puzzle. In turn, that patience is rewarded in the film’s other top-flight performances. As the elder Veronica, Charlotte Rampling brings a stillness to the two’s shared history. As Tony Webster and Veronica sit across from each other at a cafe table, Charlotte Rampling conveys an entire life’s heartbreak and resilience in a single look. It’s at this point that regret and guilt arise up, and the only question remaining is whether this elderly man can overcome his repressed emotions and self-centeredness in order to make the best of what time he has left. Each of us has a life journey, and though few of us actually ever tell the story, there are undoubtedly numerous lessons to be had with an honest look back. So all in all Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling give one of their best sterling and tour de force performance in this film that will drain all your emotions and especially a performance or achievement that has been accomplished or managed with great skill. But one thing that makes me very angry, is most of the film critics I have read on their review of this film has been 100% negativity, which is tantamount to a totally pompous pretentious attitude and I just wondered if they were watching the same film as me, as to me this film deserved its 2017 Palm Springs International Film Festival Award and of course all the actors gave their best performance in their interpretation of the brilliant screenplay, which was brilliantly written by Nick Payne who of course adapted it so brilliantly from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING novel by Julian Barnes. Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
