"The Sense of An Ending" is on the list of Must See Movies Based on Books 2017 #book2movies

"This was another of our fears; that life wouldn't turn out to be like literature."  

This is an update to my original post when the adaptation of The Sense of an Ending was just getting started in August of 2015. The film is in the can and coming out on March 10, 2017 and we’ve got the trailer. Scroll down to see it. 

Note the director is Ritesh Batra, the same director now helming the Robert Redford/Jane Fonda starrer based on Kent Haruf's Our Souls at Night. Sounds like Batra, a youthful 37, has a real affinity for older people and their stories! 

Oh my! What an amazing cast for the movie based on Julian Barnes Man Booker Prize winning The Sense of an Ending. 

What a great excuse for me to put Barnes book at the top of my TBR list!  I haven't had the pleasure of reading this author yet—slaps self on hand—but just reading the novel's description on the author's website has me twitchy with excitement.

The story of a man coming to terms with the mutable past, Julian Barnes's 2011 novel is laced with his trademark precision, dexterity and insight. It is the work of one of the world's most distinguished writers. 

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?

Seeing the trailer, I wish I'd already read the book! 

Jim Broadbent in London Spy

Charlotte Rampling in Broadchurch

Jim Broadbent plays Webster. Frankly it seems a bit of a stretch to call Broadbent who is 66, but always seems older, middle-aged but as I'm a handful of years younger, and wondering at the line between middle aged and just plain 'old', I'm grateful. Besides which, he's a remarkable actor, no matter what age. Variety announces Broadbent is being joined by the equally remarkable Charlotte Rampling who has been working since the mid-1960's. 

Joe Alwyn

 Michelle Dockery in Self/lessEmily Mortimer in The Newsroom

New kid in town, Joe Alwyn (Billy Lynn in Ang Lee's adaptation of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk ) also stars. Michelle Dockery, Emily Mortimer, Harriet Walter round out the cast. 

Is The Sense of An Ending on your bedside table or in your reading device (I use a Nook)? Have you started reading it or did you finish years ago? Or is your copy back at the bookstore waiting for you to pick it up? I can't believe after first posting about this film back in 2015 I still haven't read it!

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Follow British films and telly? Take a look at Joy Weese Moll's British Isles Friday meme. I join her every Friday with my armchair travel series Above Ground on the London Underground, sometimes book-to-movie news or a bit of memoir.

More Movies Based on Books Coming to the Screen in 2017