The director’s next is on Julian Barnes’ Man Booker winner
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 16, 2017)


How did you come across The Sense Of An Ending?
I’m a fan of Julian Barnes and read the book in 2011. I looked into it after The Lunchbox and learnt that someone was adapting it for BBC. A year later, it came to me as an offer to direct and I jumped at it.

What were the challenges of adapting characters not conceptualised by you?
When I first met him in London, Julian Barnes told me, “Go ahead and betray me.” This isn’t a book you pick up and say that it should be made into a movie. It has the character of Tony Webster talking in first person to readers and movies are not told like that but through relationships. We have to find, flesh out and create relationships to tell a story. The biggest challenge was in the process of adapting it, how far away do you go from the book and how close do you stay. You need to figure out whether you want to be first or second cousins since you can’t be siblings.

There is a flatness to cinema but when you pick up a piece of literature and your brain engages with it directly, it brings a lot more depth to the work. This is because the brain has infinite dimensions. Cinema is a powerful medium but, in many ways, not as powerful as literature.

How did you ensure you didn’t betray Julian Barnes’ readers?
In the movie, all the actors bring their lives to it. It’s great to have actors like Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling because in every scene, they are working on it like a pebble in clear water — honest, simple and unaffected. And later, when you get to the editing table, you just have to arrange these pebbles to ensure it delivers emotionally. For the readers, it’s never going to be the book onscreen.

Would you rather call it a tribute?
You can say that if you like but don’t say I said it. (Laughs) Or you can compare it to an apple. A successful adaptation complements a book. Cinema is a collaborative medium. Charlotte Rampling comes to the screen with all the tragedies and triumphs of her life. Is it a tribute? Well, hopefully, it’s not an insult.

What were the production challenges of filming in the UK?
Since the story is set both in present day and in the ’60s, it has to feel true to both periods. Given our restrictive budget, we had to shoot within London. Fortunately, the British take good care of their history and there are some well-preserved schools and bridges. We shot the past on weekends and the present on weekdays. And as I’m not British or old enough, I took cues from Jim and Alan Rickman (who passed away shortly after the film was shot) — like in the ‘60s, you could buy half a cigarette and these were smoked by schoolboys, I’ve used that in the movie. The challenge was immersing myself in the period and to ensure it was a truly British movie.

The British are believed to be really reserved, did that factor into your storytelling?
That is a cliché but then all clichés are true. The ‘British reserve’ is a real thing. These conflicts wouldn’t exist if they were more candid.

How does one crack the festival scene? Does lobbying count?
I don’t think it counts much because every festival evaluates films differently. It’s a market where films are bought and sold. Festival directors are powerful people who are there for their taste in films. From the looks of it, it seems those in Berlin like political stuff, Cannes appreciates ‘different’ films and Rotterdam, the edgy stuff. But A-list festivals are important to get to international buyers. At the end of the day, you’re trying to find a wider audience.

Do you have a fascination for older characters?
I’ve never thought about it. Even in Our Souls At Night (Batra’s next) I thought the conflict between Robert Redford and Jane Fonda’s characters would be enhanced because they don’t have enough time. But then, as it turns out, well they do, like in The Lunchbox. Life teaches you things but after you’ve invested a certain amount of time, you realise that ordinary life is difficult. And I’m not talking about extraordinary circumstances like planes getting hijacked.

Lunchbox director Ritesh Batra on making it to Variety’s list of the 'top 10 directors in the world to watch out for'
Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; December 23, 2016)

"I am gifted to be able to do what I love, which is, make films,” says an exhilarated Ritesh Batra, who has been listed on Variety’s list of world’s top 10 directors to watch out for for his English language-debut film, The Sense of an Ending. The list places him alongside the likes of Julia Ducournau (Raw) and Barry Jenkins (Moonlight).

"It feels great when you are honoured and appreciated for your work. I was thrilled when my name was announced; people around me were excited too. They are honouring everyone at the Palm Springs Film Festival in California where my film will also premiere (on January 3). But at the same time, I don’t want to be consumed by any of this, and continue doing my work," he adds.

Talking about collaborating with legendary litterateur Julian Barnes, on whose novel his film is based, Batra says, “The first thing that he told me was, ‘Go ahead and betray me.’ It was a blessing to work with him. He trusted us completely and came on the sets twice. He saw the film and sent me a letter saying he loved it.”

Despite being an adaptation, Batra promises elements of freshness in his film. “We didn’t want to make a movie that was exactly like the book. I have seen adaptations not working because they have been too faithful to the book. It was a painful yet a magical experience,” he says about the Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling-starrer.

The Lunchbox director’s debut film is creating ripples in the West before its official release
Subhash K Jha (DNA; December 18, 2016)

Ritesh Batra’s film The Sense Of An Ending based on Julian Barnes’ novel has been selected by Variety magazine among the 10 films and directors to watch out for in 2016. Clubbing Batra for this singular honour with some of the best works of the year — no Indian director has been thus honoured in recent times — Variety places Batra and his film alongside Julia Ducourno’s shocking horror film Raw and theatre’s veteran director William Oldroyd’s screen adaptation of Lady Macbeth.

The Sense Of An Ending will open the 28th Palm Springs International Film Festival on January 2, 2017. Ritesh is understandably pleased, but habitually calm about the honour. “One doesn’t know what the outcome will be when one sets off to make a film. The Sense Of An Ending was completed in June. Shooting with actors like Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling was very enriching.”

Batra got to work with the legendary litterateur Julian Barnes. Says Ritesh, “Barnes was on the project helping us all through. It is an interesting challenge to adapt the novel. We couldn’t just take the book and put it on screen.

We had to search for the centre of the novel and place it in the film. And since I was involved with the writing, I didn’t feel the brunt of the cultural shift from Mumbai in The Lunchbox to England in The Sense Of An Ending.”

Batra says the film moves quite a way away from the novel. “If you’ve read the novel it’s actually quite short. There were lots of unspoken feelings and emotions between the lines which we had to dig out. We had to amplify the emotions. It was an amazing experience to work on the development of the script with Julian Barnes.”

Mayank Shekhar (MID-DAY; November 15, 2016)

On Friday, Robert Redford, one of the most loved Hollywood actors of our time, announced that he was going to retire. While the news saw his fans slip into despondency, the one who was possibly most affected was Mumbai filmmaker, Ritesh Batra. “The burden on me suddenly went up,” he says over the phone from Colorado, where he has just wrapped up an eight week schedule with Redford for Our Souls At Night.

According to the interview the Hollywood star gave last week, Ritesh Batra’s film, where he is cast alongside Jane Fonda, will be his last, besides a “lighter piece” called Old Man With A Gun. “I was just surprised,” says Batra over the phone from Colorado. “A film with Redford is special to start with. The fact that it would be one of his last, only made the experience all the more poignant.”

Batra, who considers Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969), The Sting (1973), and All The President’s Men (1976) his favourite Redford films, first met the actor-director back in 2008 — even before he had made a movie himself. His script was selected at the Sundance screenwriter’s lab, mentored by Redford.

A key characteristic of Redford, Batra recalls from his rigorous, one- schedule shoot is “his ability to get to the truth of a moment. Into several weeks of a tiring shoot, Redford, Jane (Fonda) and I would spend five hours at a stretch discussing how we could seek and derive deeper meaning from a scene. Most others would be happy to shoot, which is hard enough, and move on.”

It’s been over three years since Batra’s first film, The Lunchbox, was widely feted globally, starting with a Rail d’Or prize at Cannes. From that iconic film, clearly, the cast seemed to have moved on to bigger, better things: Nawazuddin Siddiqui returned to Cannes this year with Anurag Kashyap’s Raman Raghav 2.0; Irrfan walked in with Tom Hanks in Inferno a few weeks ago; Nimrat Kaur landed a part in the hit HBO series, Homeland. The person who quietly slipped out of the public gaze thereafter, ironically, was Batra, the debutant director. This, for a good reason, as one can tell, talking to the Bandra boy and Sydenham College grad, while he’s been through “a whirlwind of things”, directing Fonda and Redford — who made a hit pair in Barefoot In The Park (1967). The pairs gets together on screen “ for the first time since Electric Horse in 1979.” The other Batra film to look forward to is the adaptation of Julian Barnes’s Booker-winning literary fiction, The Sense Of An Ending. Currently in post-production, it releases early next year. About what seemed like a ‘unfilmable’ book, Batra admits, “It is a difficult book to adapt, yes. Julian (Barnes) was hugely trusting, though. He asked me to go ahead, and betray him! I do believe films and books should be cousins of each other, not siblings.”

The Sense Of An Ending stars Jim Broadbent (Gangs Of New York, Moulin Rouge) and Charlotte Rampling (The Verdict, Vanishing Point) in the lead roles. Given that, and Redford’s last hurrah, based on a Kent Haruf novel, releasing late next year, clearly puts Batra in the league of the rare Indian filmmakers to have genuinely crossed over to Hollywood — maybe since Shekhar Kapur and Mira Nair. What does he make of that? “I haven’t thought about that. I am only happy to tell stories that resonate with me,” says Batra, characteristically understated.

The Lunchbox director Ritesh Batra isn’t worried about the pressure his next movie is under. He’s just doing his job
Aastha Atray Banan (MID-DAY; March 13, 2016)

"One of my favourite love stories is Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” says The Lunchbox director Ritesh Batra over the phone from London. It’s his love for love stories that may have propelled him towards his second film, The Sense Of An Ending, adapted from Julian Barnes’s novel of the same name. The story is about Tony Webster (played by Jim Broadbent), who goes back to his past and reflects on the paths he and his friends have taken. There is also a melancholic, unrequited love story in there. “I guess it’s true that I gravitate towards stories about relationships. The Lunchbox was supposed to be a movie about the dabbawala system. But it turned out to be love story.” Batra, 36, was not new to Barnes’ work when BBC Films approached him to direct the movie. “I have always been a fan,” says the filmmaker, who now divides his time between London and Mumbai. He then read the screenplay, written by Nick Payne, and realised that they could collaborate well.

But it was meeting Barnes that really cinched the deal. “He had seen The Lunchbox and loved it. And he was very generous about the liberties we could take with his book, like all great writers. But we have tried to compliment the book as much as we can. It was good, though, that Barnes gave us the go- ahead to betray him.”

The Lunchbox, which starred Irrfan, Nimrat Kaur and Nawazzudin Siddiqui, was a critical success, a festival favourite and was nominated for a BAFTA. If he is bogged down by the pressure to perform with his second movie, he doesn’t let on. “It’s not a sport, where you need to outdo yourself and push yourself for better time. Writing and directing doesn’t work that way…” he muses, and then adds, “You just go ahead and work. I am just doing a job. If the movie does well, it helps pave the way for a better movie. I was overwhelmed with the way The Lunchbox did, but hopefully this will do as well. But there is no pressure. All you have to do is be honest with your art. If you are not, the Gods of storytelling will take their hands off you.”

He does say that his third movie, which he is already working on, will be in Hindi and based in Mumbai, his home. But he does wish India had a film body that promoted Indian movies, with Indian actors, internationally. “This is why sometimes you need the private sector to step in. We need an umbrella body that wants to share Indian stories. These need to be headed by smart, visionary people, who know how things in the outside world work,” he says.

As he gets ready to put the finishing touches to the movie, he says he is too busy, except for spending time with his three-year-old daughter. “I do cook a lot. But yes, I would like to take up photography, or learn a language. You know all the things everyone wants to do and not do. Ah, well.”

Bharati Dubey (MID-DAY; March 31, 2015)

BBC Films, the film arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is celebrating its silver jubilee this year and has unveiled its latest slate of feature projects. It has roped in director Ritesh Batra to
direct an adaptation of Man Booker Prize-winning book, The Sense Of An Ending, written by Julian Barnes.

A source confirms the report, saying: “Yes, it is official. BBC Films has announced its film slate and Ritesh’s name features in it.” This will be Ritesh’s second film after The Lunchbox, which won worldwide acclaim and was nominated for the BAFTA Awards. The Nimrat Kaur and Irrfan-starrer did a worldwide theatrical business of 22.5 million dollars across 48 territories.

The Sense Of An Ending tells the story of Tony Webster, whose comfortable world is rocked after an explosive letter from his careless youth emerges. The adaptation is the debut screenplay of playwright Nick Payne, whose play ‘Constellations’ was recently on Broadway starring Jake Gyllenhaal. David Thompson will produce it for Origin Pictures.

Ritesh refused to comment on the casting and when the film is likely to go on floors.