Not one person in this film had any sense of courtesy except the main character. He continually tries to be polite and everyone is rude to him. It was quite frustrating that he would not throw a comment back at them, his ex-wife, daughter, professor, ex-girlfriend, not one polite conversation that I saw. But then again I lost interest in the film.

Something rare in British cinema these days; a highly intelligent, highly literate film based on a highly intelligent and literate book by Julian Barnes, (it won the Man Booker Prize). It's one of those films in which people think everything out before acting on their feelings, sometimes shelving their feelings altogether in favour of a purely intellectual approach. It's mostly told in flashbacks by Jim Broadbent's cynical old curmudgeon to his ex-wife Harriet Walter as he recounts the events of his past and his relationships with a potentially unstable girl, her family and his best friend.Dramatically not a great deal happens and yet, as they say, all human life is here but it is so well written, acted and directed you cling to every word and it's a real pleasure to hear such good dialogue delivered as beautifully as it is here. Broadbent hasn't been this good in years and Walters is wonderful as his ex-wife while Charlotte Rampling, in what is really just a cameo, is her usual outstanding self as the older version of Broadbent's first love. The younger players are also very fine; Billy Howle as the young Broadbent, Joe Alwyn as the friend, Downton's Michelle Dockery as a heavily pregnant daughter. It's also very touching and very funny; something of a real treat in fact.

I have a few problems with this movie and that's why I just rate it as an average movie. One of my issues is that the movie is way too long. It could easily have been done half on hour shorter. Then the movie would have been better. Now the first 45 minutes are just boring to watch. I thought the movie was going nowhere at one point and yawning was the only thing I did for almost an entire hour. The best part of the movie is the end part. That was worth watching. You can't really blame Jim Broadbent for anything, he did his best trying to make it an enjoyable movie to watch. Too bad the beginning was so boring, because the revealing of the mystery was good. But that's just not enough to make it a good movie.

There is a fine line between enigmatic and tedious and this film is right on the line. Stunning cast but too much swapping between the present and the past, too many white, middle class, unpleasant characters. The 'change' in the main character felt tacked on and implausible. Why were the lesbians a joke? Is this the new way to deal with lesbians on film, to include them but make them a bit of a joke? I disliked the feeling that young Veronica was 'cold' because she did not put out. If I was meant to be struggling as I left the cinema and indeed for much of the night then the film succeeds but I did not like it.