The Sense of An Ending: By Marilyn Penn
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The title of this adaptation of a Julian Barnes novel seemed prophetic as several people in the rows near me could be heard asking each other for clarification of exactly what did happen at the end of the movie. This was not a purposeful device on the part of the director who wished to leave certain information ambiguous – instead, it was the result of a pile-on of too much information crammed too quickly into a tidy ending. It reminded me of what a hostess does when guests are at the front door too early and miscellaneous stuff needs to be collected and tossed into a closet so the entrance way looks neat.
If memory serves, some of the plot points have been added on in order to make the movie more relevant to today’s mores, such as a mid-thirties pregnant lesbian daughter becoming a single mother, played by Downton’s formidable Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery). Though she lights up the screen, this side-plot adds little to the story of a man whose past catches up with him through a surprising bequest of his best friend’s diary and the subsequent unraveling of the differences between memory, longing and some difficult truths. Jim Broadbent plays the aging Tony Webster, a former Oxford student whose life as a divorced, uptight owner of a small camera shop belies the promising future he once imagined. Charlotte Rampling plays the aging woman he once loved who betrayed him with his own best friend, provoking Tony’s mean-spirited letter that contained an ominous curse on that relationship. Unfortunately, Rampling bears no resemblance to the actress playing her younger self, a big casting mistake since it’s hard to see her as anything but a new person in his life. What works better in the novel than the film are the serendipitous off-hand observations and overheard remarks that give this anti-hero his eventual epiphanies into what really happened and what kind of man he actually is.
Besides being confusing, these realizations seem gratuitously forced as opposed to earned and the semblance of a hopeful ending all around is more trite than profound. For a much more satisfying adaptation of a Barnes novel, see the first-class t.v. mini-series of “Arthur & George,” (2015) a fascinating take on a true story concerning Arthur Conan Doyle and a man convicted of a crime he did not commit. The ending will be crystal clear.
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