The Sense of an Ending (film)

The film had its world premiere at the Palm Springs International Film Festival on 2 January 2017. It was released in the United States on 10 March 2017, by CBS Films and Lionsgate, and in the United Kingdom on 14 April 2017, by StudioCanal.

Plot[edit]

The story, told through Tony Webster's memories, and those of his friends, explores the imperfection and selectivity of memory, and the different recollections of past events, depending on the observer and the time since the event. Elements of the plot are used to compare the perhaps impossible problem of obtaining a definitive objective view of history with the similar difficulties involved in personal memory.


Elderly divorcé Anthony 'Tony' Webster runs a London camera shop and lives quietly. He receives a letter from the estate of Sarah Ford, the mother of his 1960s university girlfriend Veronica. To his surprise she has left him £500 and a diary, which is still with Veronica.


In flashback, we hear that Tony's Sixth Form classmate, Dobson, died from what many believed to be suicide after his girlfriend became pregnant. Tony's friend, the highly intelligent Adrian Finn, told their history teacher that in the absence of documentary evidence nobody will ever know the true reason for his suicide. Later, at the University of Bristol, Tony met Veronica, who introduced him to photography as a hobby. On a visit to her family, Veronica's attractive mother Sarah flirted with him but warned him "not to let Veronica get away with too much". As Tony left, Sarah gave him a horizontal wave at waist level. Tony was unsure if it was a flirtatious goodbye or a warning signal.


Veronica later broke up with Tony, having never had full sexual intercourse with him - until after their breakup. He received a letter from Adrian requesting his blessing for his new relationship with Veronica. At first he decided to respond positively, but then wrote an angry reply, writing of her being damaged and how even her mother had warned him about her, and wishing they would have a child which would pay for its parents' sins. He never heard back from either of them. Tony's two best friends from Sixth Form later informed him that Adrian, who had seemed happy and in love at first, had committed suicide. Tony believed that Veronica could have met Adrian through her brother Jack, who like Adrian studied at the University of Cambridge (but had previously told Tony he did not know Adrian), but they pointed out that Adrian and Veronica met through Tony.


In the present day, Tony tells his ex-wife Margaret about his relationship with Veronica for the first time. Tony reconnects with his two Sixth Form friends and they help him locate Veronica online. She is still angry at him, has burned Adrian's diary, which might have explained why he committed suicide, but hands him the angry letter he had written to her and Adrian. Spying on Veronica, Tony sees her with an intellectually disabled middle-aged man who bears a striking resemblance to, and is called, Adrian. Tony learns that the child is not Veronica's son but her younger half-brother, and guesses he is the son of Adrian and Veronica's mother, Sarah.


Tony's daughter Susie, whose pregnancy has been a subplot throughout the film, gives birth to a healthy boy. Tony writes to Veronica, apologising to her for what he did.