| Overall Grade: |
B |
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| Story: |
B |
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| Acting: |
A |
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| Direction: |
B |
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| Visuals: |
B |
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Starts off well enough...
by RobertC (movies profile)
Jul 4, 2008
14
of
15 people found this review helpful
Atonement starts promisingly, dramatically, and with some humor, as the imagination and moral immaturity of young Briony Tallis lead at first to some standard British drawing room drama, and then to the brink of tragedy. Some very fine acting, cinematography, and great scenery help get us involved.
Then the movie abruptly shifts locations, actors, and pace. Although the plot switches to the historically dramatic circumstances of the second world war, our characters now seem only to be marking time.
And then, near the end of the movie, we are subjected to a writerly device, which forces us to re-evaluate the second half of the movie. There's a great tradition of these tricks in film and we react differently to each one: a smile of understanding when Dorothy wakes at the end of The Wizard of Oz; a laugh of delight at the end of The Usual Suspect were a criminal's yarn; the surprise at the revelation in The Sixth Sense.
But at the end of Atonement, when the device was played, my reaction was simply disappointment, and simply confirmed my decreased engagement in the second half of the movie. Whatever was the intended impact, the drama had long before seeped away.
It's worth seeing for the acting, cinematography, and that dramatic first hour. |
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