Atonement Review

Atonement: What would the Oscar movie season be without a sweeping love story that is disrupted by World War II. Keira Knightley and James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland) star as the two young lovers. Knightley plays Cecilia Tallis, the daughter of a very wealthy British family. McAvoy plays Robbie, the son of the Tallis family’s servants. The Tallis family puts Robbie through university at Cambridge, thus putting him on the cusp of joining the “upper class”. Cecilia and Robbie discover their love for one another however, not everyone in the Tallis family sees their relationship as “true love”. After having a couple of days to let this film soak in my mind, I can’t help but be mad at it. It did so much right - starting with the powerful story and the perspective in which it was told. The cinematography was absolutely beautiful and the score of the film was exceptional – I thought the use of the typewriter sound at key points was brilliant. I even treasured the scope of the film which captured an interesting viewpoint of WWII. All that said, the movie’s biggest fault was that it did not give us enough time with the two main characters before the conflict. How emotionally vested can we be when only 10 minutes of screen time is devoted to their affection for one another? This is one of the few times a movie could have truly been enhanced had the runtime been 20 minutes LONGER. To the film’s credit, I was still very much moved by the conclusion. This is a case of a “Good” movie that could have been.....and should have been -“Great”.
* * * or Grade: B

If this movie had Parents they would be: The English Patient & The Notebook

With a runtime of 120 minutes – too short
This film is rated R