Atonement: A Film Review

Posted by beth on December 11, 2008

I don’t know if this will so much be a review as just my thoughts immediately after having seen it. They really haven’t changed in the two days since then, so it still works. After I finished Atonement the other day, I was talking to Lauren about it. She asked if I liked it, and I didn’t know. My initial assessment was as follows:

It is intense. As movies go, I think it was good. The story was well-written, but the events that transpire are just awful. Like tragic awful. If it happened in real life, you’d say it was one of the most awful things you’d ever heard of. And to make matters worse, the whole thing could have been prevented. You get to the end of it, and you’re a tiny bit happy, but mostly frustrated and sad and furious. I mean, just downright angry. But still, you can’t say it was a bad film. You were just dissatisfied with the story and its ending. So in a nutshell:

Movie: Good (I give it one and a quarter thumbs up with a quizzical facial expression and a shrug
Story: Well-written (I’ll have to read the book now)
Series of events: Tragic awful (Like depress-you-for-the-rest-of-the-day awful. Seriously.)
Keira Knightley’s mouth: Predictably annoying, but her hair is really cute
Feelings at the end of the film: Frustration, sadness, slight happiness, fury

I don’t want to buy it or see it in my stocking at Christmas by any means, but I would recommend it. I hear the book is even better, and clearly I’m all for you reading it as well. Let me know what you think if you watch or read it (or what you thought if you’ve already watched/read it).

I did have to put on the Legally Blonde: The Musical soundtrack the instant the movie was over as I might have stuck my head in the oven otherwise, but I’m ok now. And yes, I have been listening to LB:TM ever since. Shocking, I know.