The Sense of an Ending

Jim Broadbent, Charlotte Rampling, Michelle Dockery and Emily Mortimer star in this adaptation of Julian Barnes' Man Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name. The story is a deceptively simple ramble though the messy past of a happily retired, contentedly emotionless Brit (Broadbent) who starts to question his life choices after his old college girlfriend (Rampling) resurfaces. The story is built like a mystery, but there isn't much of one in this flashback-heavy narrative. The cast is all topflight, but the loss of Barnes' tangled, first-person prose robs the story of its most impactful drama. FULL REVIEW: Modest British drama pits the past against the present, but neither one is really that big a deal by Devin D. O’Leary (3/16/2017). 108 minutes PG-13.