Atonement

I will outline several reviews of people who posted on a website, and then I'll give my own review.

Matthew Pejkovic: An epic, grandiose, and immensely sad film, Atonement is an extremely well crafted, visually rich love story set during a tumultuous time of war, where two impassioned characters are forever torn apart by the selfish jealousy of another.

James Kendrick: At some points Wright appears to be simply showing off the dexterity of his visual ambitions to the detriment of the story's emotional core. The movie amounts to rolling lawns, lovely costumes, and characters that simply fail to resonate.

Bruce Newman: In its first 45 minutes, Atonement achieves a kind of perfection rare even for big Oscar-bait movies. Every facet of the filmmaking is the equal of any picture released this year. The rest of the movie isn't so bad.

Bryant Frazer: Stately and majestic but in a decidedly lackluster way, Joe Wright’s Atonement is a lushly shot, proficiently performed, and largely stultifying period piece that invites only mild, detached admiration. Based on Ian McEwan’s acclaimed novel (which I have not read), Wright’s film concerns the 1935 affair between wealthy Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) and the son of her household’s maid, Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), a relationship torn asunder by Cecilia’s younger sister, aspiring writer Briony (Saoirse Ronan). Briony, a creator of fictions, concocts a dastardly lie that banishes Robbie from Cecilia’s arms and, eventually, straight into WWII, where the story – after an effectively intriguing, if somewhat arid, set-up – soon flounders. Pivoting around Wright’s hollow, look-at-me extended tracking shot along the soldier-populated shores of Dunkirk, Robbie’s military service is the film’s most dreary, sterile sequence, though just about everything here has been carefully polished to within an inch of its existence. Knightley and McAvoy’s turns are heartfelt yet colorless, in part because Wright (Pride & Prejudice) spends so much effort cultivating a grand scope and atmosphere that he neglects to properly humanize the plight of his protagonists or piercingly convey his material’s focus on the way art helps us grapple with life. The central romantic tragedy, and older Briony’s (Romola Garai) tortured attempts to make reparations for her crime, are dutifully depicted but missing that vital spark of thorny, fervent, wild emotion, eventually leaving Atonement a would-be epic that feels as if it were trapped under a pane of glass.



In my opinion this movie is amazing. This movie is one of my favorites. I loved it. In each scene and new things happen all the time you're intrigued. I really like the structure of the film, because I had never seen a movie like this. The film had me hooked from the first scene and I really hit the end because I was not expecting that to happen. He gave me a lot of grief and it was really shocking. I'm going back to see it a thousand times, because I'm sure I will not tire. It is an excellent film and how much wonderful actors.