Review of Atonement (1971) by Adam D — 27 Dec 2010
Unfocused and pretentious. Beautiful cinematography and a haunting score mired by a slow, middling plot that forces the viewer to care without providing proper justification.
The movie begins as a saccharine love story and then a tragic war epic and then a family drama. This is too many drastic tone changes for one film. By the end, I no longer care about any of the characters.
The romance between Cecilia and Robbie occurs without any development. It just happens, and they stay madly in love throughout the film without any sort of tension or conflict (due to the problems with the story mentioned above). As a romantic piece, it becomes overly sentimental and ultimately uninteresting.
Judged solely on its individual parts, the film is quite strong. The cinematography, music, production design, and sound design are all top notch and at times, even breathtaking. All the principal actors gave fine performances as well.
However, as a whole, the film does not work. Moreover, the cinematography occasionally became too fancy without lending itself to the story. It's showing off for no reason, and I only have the director to blame.
Final Verdict: It's worth a rental.
This review of Atonement (1971) was written by Adam D on 27 Dec 2010.
Atonement has generally received very positive reviews.
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