The Sense of an Ending (Ritesh Batra, 2017)

Ritesh Batra follows up his international breakthrough The Lunchbox with an adaptation of Julian Barnes's Booker-winning novel, casting the ever-watchable Jim Broadbent as a man mulling over the defining period of his life 40 years before when his best friend committed suicide after taking off with his girlfriend. The tone is naturally wistful, golden-glowed flashbacks leading from his attempts to piece together the reality of what happened. Much of Barnes's sharp dialogue remains intact, but the necessary substitution of the unreliable narrator that steers the flow of the novel with actual objectively-viewed scenes ultimately detracts from what makes the original text compelling: less is left to guesswork and Broadbent then just asserting in voiceover that we are architects of the account of our own pasts, even to ourselves, therefore carries less force. Nevertheless, the quality of the performances on show and the director's ability to focus on small nuances of expression, both verbal and non-verbal, offer adequate compensation for the lack of really telling dramatic impact.

6/10