I’m totally unbiased because I’ve never seen the movie nor read the book. I’m going to go ahead and defend the reviewer though. What the heck does it matter if there’s a book and/or this is an adaptation? A good filmmaker would be able to achieve the desired result without the viewers ever having read the book first!

I think the crux of the ending really contrasts Briony’s act of creation with the confessional and existential motives that drive her. The purest confessional standards – and the most rigorous existential motives – would require Briony to give the story an unhappy – but “true” – ending. Yet, she is willing to sacrifice her own need for confession out of consideration for her audience. So we come full circle – the story starts and ends with two of Briony’s lies. And if we compare her motives for each lie, we see the difference between a conceited girl and a compassionate woman.

As this thread shows, few of the film’s viewers have any sympathy for her either. An interesting effect, given that Briony herself is more or less in control of the narrative. It seems strange, yet very human, that a person who can express so much compassion – for her sister, for Robbie, even for the readers of her book – can find so little for herself.

By her own account, Briony was both the product and the instrument of an unjust society. Aristocratic prejudice not only allowed her lie to condemn a man of lower class than herself, but it also prejudiced her in her certainty that Robbie was the rapist.

The narrative (Briony’s own creation) underscores the moment of her sin. There is no doubt that she has crossed the line when she testifies that she saw Robbie, not merely that she thinks it was him. The young Briony who lies knows she is lying and knows she has done wrong.

We might wish for someone to point out that a lie by a young girl, in the absence of any other proof, should not send an innocent man to jail. (If we consider that to be the measure of a just society, I wonder how well our own would hold up, but that’s a digression.)

I think Briony deprives herself of an advocate because she is ashamed. If the lie were not so telling, if it did not show, in microcosm, the very same aristocratic snobbery that sends Robbie to jail, then perhaps Briony could find some compassion for herself. But then, we would not have the same story at all.

So what is Briony really trying to accomplish? She puts an enormous effort into reconstructing the story of Robbie, Cecilia, and herself. Why? The effort itself is, in my view, the ultimate statement of her heroism. It is the only act of creation that she is capable of. Given the historical context (WWII France) I think Briony is an existential heroine. She is relentless in her *examination* of herself and the world in which she has lived. She in *unblinking* in the face of her own deepest flaws. I believe that is the point of all the close-ups in the film.

Yet the ultimate achievement of an existential hero embroiled in this world of shit and heartbreak must be to create something that is not merely timeless but also beautiful. Perhaps the Dunkirk scene accomplishes that. Yet it is clear that the average viewer (or at least the average viewer who posts here) is not struck by the beauty of Briony’s creation. And, in that way, our failure becomes hers.

1.) To me, the “elephant in the room” about this film is that it seems to want the viewer to blame Briony as much as the film’s other characters blame her; that is, it wants us to think that Briony has reason to atone. In fact, she does not.

The viewer never receives strong evidence throughout the course of the film that Briony willfully lied about Robbie. She is fairly portrayed as an innocent child who, because of circumstances, confusion and emotional turmoil, makes a predictable mistake. As the character states later in the film, it is only maturity that allows her to understand the consequences.

If, as some writers here have claimed, the story is being told exclusively from Briony’s point of view, then we are seeing a film about self-blame and self-hatred, with Robbie and Cecelia’s characters acting as mouthpieces for the author’s feelings toward herself.

What was missing for me in the end was a character in the movie to remind the audience that Briony was NOT guilty. I felt sad at the end of the movie because of the likelihood that a lot of people would walk out of the theater hating Briony and thinking that she really was at fault. If that is not what the director intended, then I think he slightly missed the mark.

Aside from the fact that Briony is innocent by virtue of being a child, the viewer can’t even be sure that she actually changed the course of Robbie and Cecelia’s lives all that drastically. Four years after Robbie’s arrest, the war would have come and Robbie would have been in it, whether as a former prison inmate or as a doctor. The rest of Robbie and Cecelia’s story might have been the same or worse, regardless of Briony’s influence.

It should have been made clearer to the audience that Briony did not have the power over their lives that she presumes she had. Otherwise, the audience is being guided to see her as the villain. I didn’t read the book, but I find it hard to believe that is what its author intended.

Incidentally, I agree with the writer who said the 18-year-old Briony’s make-up was unattractive and made her hard to watch. Perhaps the director was trying to show that age and stress had diminished the charm of the 13-year-old; to me it only added to the possibility that fewer audience members would have sympathy for Briony in the end.

2.) A major flaw that a lot of people have alluded to here is one that deserves as much emphasis as it can get — if you want the love story to be secondary, then don’t cast Keira Knightley and James McAvoy as the lovers! I went to the film primarily to see two beautiful, powerful movie stars “in love,” and I bet a lot of other people did, too. I was disappointed by how little we got to see them onscreen.

3.) My interpretation of the rape scene was that it wasn’t exactly a rape scene. Although the chocolatier is definitely creepy and pedophilic, Lola is shown feeling attracted to him in the scene of their first meeting and at the dinner table. I saw the scene in the woods as “consensual” (not by today’s standards), which is why Lola didn’t want the perpetrator’s identity known.

4.) The Dunkirk scene was beautiful. And irrelevant. The director should have saved it for a different movie.

5.) I love Vanessa Redgrave, but sticking her in at the end like that was anachronistic and disruptive to the mood of the film.

To those whom it may concern,

Personally attacking someone, with words or with actions, does nothing more then weaken your argument. Timgrifjr may have had some worthy things to say, but that is lost in his disrespectful and uncouth comments. If you want people to really consider the things you have to say, intelligently attack their arguments. This makes you look like you actually know what you are talking about, instead of someone who has poor vocabulary skills, and who angers easily.

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In other words, THL is saying that Timgrifjr’s arguments (which THL grants may be valid) are not credible because Timgrifjr sounds angry and has poor vocabulary. Does Timgrifjr’s vocabulary or emotional constitution have anything to do with the validity of his arguments? I think this post is pretty funny. Is this a joke?
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I’m not sure which of Michelle’s words we are supposed to “consider carefully”? Is her review so “complicated” that most of us don’t get it? Or is it just “shallow and bad”?

Schlock. You have said everything so well.

My review is at IMDB. I am sure I will be blistered for it……;>)

Michelle got it right. It pains me this won “Best Drama” – I fear future acclaim-seeking movies will try duplicate its 2-hour Meatloaf Music Video “live-or-die by cinematography” style. Give Michelle’s words real thought – this is a braver review than the other dozen I’ve read today. I can tell how this review might personally offend a fan of the book who would want the story to succeed in any media, but the book was done an injustice by this production.

Also, no matter how many times you say the word complicated that doesn’t make the movie complicated. It seems to me that those who enjoyed the film found it complicated and those who hated or disliked the film did not find it complicated. Now unless we are to assume that everyone who dislikes this film is a simpleton, I would hazard a guess that the film really isn’t that complicated. As of yet, no one who enjoyed the film has shown how it was complicated or revealed to me anything that I did not already understand. I believe that when people really enjoy a movie and others attack that movie, they use the word complicated to try and suggest maybe the dislikee isn’t smart enough to understand what happened. I have done it before, but just because you liked a movie doesn’t mean it was complicated. Atonement was not COMPLICATED, don’t insult our intelligence by trying to claim it was.

To those whom it may concern,

Personally attacking someone, with words or with actions, does nothing more then weaken your argument. Timgrifjr may have had some worthy things to say, but that is lost in his disrespectful and uncouth comments. If you want people to really consider the things you have to say, intelligently attack their arguments. This makes you look like you actually know what you are talking about, instead of someone who has poor vocabulary skills, and who angers easily.

1) As David Simon says, “Fuck the average [viewer].” Art’s highest responsibility is to itself, and communicating what it’s made to communicate in the best way it can. In the case of this film, the jarring flashbacks and stunning cinematography depict a violent passion that runs beneath the characters’ stoic faces and mannered behavior. I’m sorry if it’s hard to understand, but this is the way it was in upper-class Victorian England.

2) Listen, you don’t need to read the book. Just be aware that you are seeing something more complex than the usual. This complexity is necessary, turning a well-worn story into something unique and meaningful. The reason people are attacking you, Michelle, is because you’ve attacked something that has enriched their lives in some small way. Worse, you do this out of a basic ignorance, and you bluster your way through this deficiency with an uncommon spite. You know, Milan Kundera described this in Immortality (is it okay to reference a book here?). You’re the kind of woman who walks into a spa and says, loudly, “I hate baths! I only take showers!” It comes from an insecurity in your own life choices, and you need to put others down to make sense out of yourself.

3) You’re off the mark on that love story assumption. I’d say this story is more in line with the kind of film The New World is, a film about many things which uses a love story to bring some themes out. This film is about passion and social mores and basic human connections, and what better way to test these themes than a tangled triangle of love, yearning and regret.

4) No character development? The story is character driven! But their actions are subtle (refer to point 1). Instead of running out to the fountain and finding out what’s happened for herself, Briony skulks from the window and makes it up. This means something. Don’t you get it?

One of the complaints here are that the romance never properly developed in the movie (or the book, for that matter). That is one of the points of the movie. It was a love affair that was frustrated at its outset and never became anything more than potential.

In this modern day, perhaps we would expect Cecilia to move on at some point when Robbie went to prison. This is where the modern day differs to pre WW2 times. People waited back then. My own grandmother dated my grandfather only a couple of times during his two week leave from WW2 and when he left for New Guinea he didn’t return for three years, after which time they were married. It is hard to imagine that happening now.

Added to this, Cecilia was no longer a virgin after the encounter in the library and in those aristocratic british times, this would pose a problem for her. It is logical that she would pin her hopes on Robbie’s return.

I believe the fact that the relationship never developed was part of the point of the story. It was frustrated so early and existed only as potential in the imaginations of both people for so long that the fact the relationship never had a chance to be made real is one of the great tragedies in this movie.

I loved the book and the movie, anyway. I’m getting sick of all those spoon-feeding, cliched american movies. I saw marie antoinette the other week and was absolutely appalled at the gall of an American director to trivialise such an important woman in France’s history. I mean, imagine if a French director trivialised the life of JKF or Martin Luthur King!

I understand that Briony’s memories constitute the depiction of the movie’s primary relationship. But how can you have any emotional connection with the sister and the boyfriend if their screen time together is limited to a few minutes, when the sister’s acting is wooden, and when the “love scene” that was supposedly the foundation of said relationship is a very unromantic quick bang? There’s zero chemistry between the two.

I wonder if the book’s author used the same language for the secret note that fell into Bri’s hands? It just seemed a bit vulgar if you’re trying to portray the boyfriend as a desirable romantic protagonist. I mean, I would expect that language in a porn magazine, not an epic romance film.

I agree with another poster that it would have been satisfying to know what Bri’s motives were, since the film went out of its way to inject the drown-rescue scene.

I just didn’t care about any of these characters, but then I didn’t read the book, where some of these issues might have been addressed. I applaud the reviewer for not jumping on the critic bandwagon on this one and expressing a view many of us can empathize with.