The trailer of A Sense of an Ending based on the book of the same name by Julian Barnes brings back the return of The Lunchbox director Ritesh Batra, this time, helming a film with an entirely foreign cast.
It’s been over three years since audiences last saw a film by Ritesh Batra, whose first film was the poignant and charming The Lunchbox. Starring Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur as two strangers who bond over letters placed in a tiffin box, the film, which had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013, would go on to win over audiences both in India and abroad.
Batra’s work clearly made quite an impression for he was roped in to direct the adaptation of Julian Barnes’ Booker Prize-winning novel, The Sense of An Ending.
It is a letter again that turns things around in Batra’s second feature. Here is a synopsis of the book from the author’s website.
“Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they navigated the girl drought of gawky adolescence together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they swore to stay friends forever. Until Adrian’s life took a turn into tragedy, and all of them, especially Tony, moved on and did their best to forget.
Now Tony is in middle age. He’s had a career and a marriage, a calm divorce. He gets along nicely, he thinks, with his one child, a daughter, and even with his ex-wife. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove. The unexpected bequest conveyed by that letter leads Tony on a dogged search through a past suddenly turned murky. And how do you carry on, contentedly, when events conspire to upset all your vaunted truths?”
With Oscar winning-actor Jim Broadbent as the protagonist Tony Webster and accomplished actors such as Charlotte Rampling, Mathew Goode, Emily Mortimer and Michelle Dockery in the cast, the film explores themes of love, forgiveness and regret.
Meanwhile, Batra has also wrapped his third feature based on a book written by Kent Haruf. Our Souls at Night centres on a widow (Jane Fonda) and widower (Robert Redford) in a small Colorado town who eventually develop a romantic relationship. As a result, Batra may have two films releasing next year.
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