- I haven’t read the book. Just putting it out there.
- While I thought the performances were strong overall, I thought the movie itself was pretty weak and borderline obnoxious in places. I believe I am in the minority in this opinion.
- Seeing as the title of this movie is Atonement, one would think that Briony would have actually atoned for her actions at one point. Apparently not. Instead of being completely honest in the autobiographical tale she eventually writes, she continues to lie. This is atonement how, exactly? I know you’re suffering from dementia, old!Briony, but come on: letting Cecelia and Robbie “be together” in the book in no way makes up for the fact that your idiotic behaviour tore them apart and eventually ended with both their deaths. That’s awesome. Seriously, forty Hail Marys and forty Our Fathers for you, my child. For a woman who is a) a writer and b) obviously as a very good vocabulary, she seems to completely fail to grasp the concept of atonement. Does the book end this stupidly?
- Speaking of the ending, I hated it. The second it went all modern during old!Briony’s interview, followed by everything she said afterwards, it pretty much killed any enjoyment I might have had of this movie. Not only did it completely take me out of a story I was barely into as it was, it was just so ridiculous and preposterous that I wanted to reach into the screen and slap Vanessa Redgrave across the face with a fish. Redgrave was pretty good, but that’s so besides the point.
- The problem with introducing everything first from Briony’s point-of-view is that I really felt no emotional connection to Robbie’s and Cecelia’s relationship. Briony views everything at a distance (through an incredibly skewed lens) and so I never got any sense that theirs was an epic, undying, illicit love. I knew this on an intellectual level because that’s what the movie wants me to think, but I didn’t really feel it, so every time they were parted or were thinking wistfully of each other, I didn’t really care. Problem is, I should care. But I don’t.
- Stupid continuity tricks to let you know that an aged character is the same character you saw earlier in the film: do not change her hairstyle, ever. You’d think Briony would get sick of that bob after seventy years, but what do I know.
- They did a bang-up job of finding similar looking actresses to play Briony Through The Ages, though. In the scene where nurse!Briony is talking to the guy who speaks French, she looked ridiculously like child!Briony.
- Everytime Cecelia said “Come back!” to Robbie, I wanted to punch her in the face. That’s Kate Winslet’s line, bitch!
- That was a deceptively deep fountain.
- The narrative structure really bugged the fuck out of me, holy god. I know that one of the the overarching ideas in the movie is the unreliability of narrative and so that every time we see something from Briony’s skewed perspective, we need to rewind and see it from a more objective standpoint but that’s the thing: I’m not an idiotic thirteen year-old girl with an incredibly active imagination. I can see the scene from Briony’s point-of-view and grasp perfectly well that a) she’s interrogating it from the wrong perspective and b) the reality of the scene is far different from her interpretation. I don’t need to see everything twice to grasp that. I love it when filmmakers treat audiences like they’re complete imbeciles, I really do, but it’s not something I was expecting from this movie. Everything was just so heavy handed, I couldn’t believe it.
- Truthfully, when Leon brought Paul-the-chocolate-heir home with him, I actually thought we’d find out that they were involved in a torrid love affair together. Oops, my bad.
- [thoughts on Dunkirk scene]
- I’m hoping the book doesn’t have as many stupid plot points and lack of character development as the movie.
- Mostly this movie did not let me care one iota about any of the characters, which I think is its biggest problem.
- Truthfully this is a 1.5 star rating, but I’m being gracious and rounding up today.
Atonement
Oh hooray, another period drama starring Keira Knightley.
IMDB Plot Synopsis Fledgling writer Briony Tallis, as a 13-year-old, irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.
I actually have read this book. And to answer your question, to my knowledge, yes, yes it does end that stupidly. And if I recall, the book did that rewind, I remember reading at least one scene twice and being like huh? Sucks too, because I read the book wanting to see this movie. I read the book and decided not to bother, despite how much I like these actors. Maybe they’ll reunite one day.