Review of Atonement (2007) by Arash B — 04 Dec 2012

For all its period costumes and scenery this adpatation of the popular best seller seems to have missed the point. In all fairness I have not read the book and judging by this adaptation I never will. The storyline leaves much to be desired with its shoe string plot that half way through moves on 5 years combines a few bits of sentiment and tries to make something epic.

The characters have little chemistry which itself is not Mcavoy and Knightly's fault, they after all act their parts well. Its the lack of focus on whose story this is and the point of it all which makes it somewhat bizaare. There are some great moments such as the scenes immediately on the beach with a few great musical scores, but it infuriates me that the characters themselves have little or zero personality throughout the entire feature (in what little scenes they have together). What started out as a great drama turned into a poignant self consious mess in which the stars themselves have no idea what the conclusion to it all is.

There is some clever directing showing scenes from different points of view which run into each other, but nothing that will lead you to be astounded. The sets may be beautiful but its nothing which we have not come to expect since Ang Lee's masterpeice which was Sense and Sensability.

Overall it gleams on the outside but with closer inspection this hollow wreck of a film has too many side way glances and not enough dialogue to make any character or any sentiment memorable. How Empire gave this 5 stars I will never know?