Review of Atonement (2007) by José M — 25 Nov 2013

Atonement, I never thought. Atonement's strength is done through the art of storytelling and characters as the time is to be set in darkness. The film opens up slow as we move around a mansion to meet around the characters in the film.

The first one to be known is a young girl named Bryony who loves to write plays. The second is a young woman named Cecilia, older sister. The third is a young man named Robbie. Robbie and Cecilia are lovers with a passion that starts out innocently bad, but it becomes physical and passionate between the two.

These characters become the focus of the film as the story begins to unfold during the brink of World War II. When a young girl witnesses an incident, she becomes outraged. The camera moves and we go through the incident except it tells us another perspective.

It's an impressive technique. Anyways, the girl's personality starts to divulge a side of anger, dishonesty, and jealousy that lands the boy arrested. A few years later as we find out through Robbie that everything turned black.

He and group of men are lost in the middle of France as the German army is conquering Europe. All seems lost, but he is not in desperation as he is hoping to reunite with Cecilia once again. We move on to see what has become of all of them with turns that I never saw coming.

The performance here is well done as you believe in the characters and you care about them that you wonder how everything will turn out. Very well, it was however the Dunkirk scene that was my favorite part of the film.

We watch the camera move around the place and see all kinds of folks (mostly soldiers). Anyways, although it is two hours long and it feels a little drag, this film would have fallen as boring, but it's never boring because the characters are very interesting.