Synopsis:

Atonement is the story of Cecilia Tallis and Robbie Turner.  Cecilia is an aristocrat's daughter growing up on her family's estate in England.  Robbie is the cook's son.  Love blossoms between Cecilia and Robbie.  After a horrendous misinterpretation by Cecilia's younger sister Briony, Robbie is arrested and ultimately shipped off to fight in France for the English army during World War II.  The film follows the two of them as they seek one another as well as tracks Briony in her attempt to gain atonement for her transgression against them.

The Freak's Rating: C- : Sounds like it might be pretty good, doesn't it?  Period pieces are very interesting to me.  A love story set against historical backdrop makes it far more intriguing.  Atonement starts out with everything I wanted it to be.  The first act is told in a series of opposing views, one from Briony's and one of what really happened.  The film is quite clever in the way scenes were filmed, conveying with little difficulty what was no doubt easier to interpret by reading the book.  However, after Robbie is arrested, the movie takes a massive dive and never comes back.

The second and third act follow Robbie and Cecelia as he enters the war as a soldier and she as a nurse.  They reunite a few years after the awful incident and the spark reignites.  Hope is provided for each of them in one way or another and the longing is increasingly painful with each scene.  This is NOT a happy movie. 

Atonement was known as the novel that couldn't be brought to the screen.  That is an incredibly accurate statement.  Though I haven't read the book, I have a feeling it was much easier to read than to watch.  There are so many parts of this film (chasing after a bus after your true love gets on and standing in a very artistic shot behind a movie screen) that feel tossed in for effect.  At one point a horse-executing psycho soldier carnival appears out of thin air, with little to no explanation or validation for its inclusion in the film, other than to continue to depress the hell out of the audience.

We are supposed to love this movie.  We are supposed to cry and be moved and rave to all our friends about the best picture potential winner we just saw.  The saddest part of the film is that the character development simply didn't exist.  I never cared about the couple.  We never got a sense of happiness between them before the tragedy, we never saw them grow to be in love, never saw courting or batting of the eyes at one another.  It was pathetically adapted for the screen.  An additional half hour should have been tacked on the beginning of the film to strengthen our attention on the primary characters and increase our interest in their happiness.  At one point in the film, there was a brilliant scene for the character development of Briony.  It felt so out of place due to the lack of similar supportive scenes for Cecilia and Robbie. 

Atonement just won the Best Picture - Drama award at the Golden Globes.  My faith in award shows is on the brink.  The set design, costumes and cinematography were top notch in the film, but they can't carry it enough for me to recommend it.

Though I will eventually grant atonement to both Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, I am still a little hurt over the disappointment of having to sit through this film.

Brian's Rating: C- : This movie was nominated for Best Picture in 2007.  I do not know why.  It was boring.  It simply did not pass the entertainment test.  Yeah, it had good acting, but there was nothing cool with how it was directed, and the story was very slow moving.

It took 40 minutes before anything relevant happened, and then when you thought it was going to pick up again, about 15-20 minutes later, once again it starts going nowhere, losing the viewer in a maze of confusion about what actually is the purpose of this scene.

Its a love story, sort of.  Its also the story of a wrongful conviction that gets in the way of said love story.  It is also the story of guilt from the girl who lied to get the wrongful conviction.  It was more a lie of misunderstanding and self-deception, but devastating nonetheless.  She feels bad, hence the title.

Now, the praise.  The ending was very cool.  It was done well, and truly made the story better.  Its just too bad that everything leading up to the final 10 minutes just made me want to sleep.

Jen's Rating: C- : Scott and I have already discussed this movie so I apologize is some of what I say is similar to his (I didn't read his yet).  This movie is strongly lacking in character development.  We were all saying how we just didn't care about the characters enough to care what they were going through.  I loved the editing from the beginning where they switched from different perspectives so you could see two sides of the story.  That was really neat.  Well, the first half of the movie was pretty good.  But as soon as things turned around in the movie, it went down hill fast!  Acting was ok, editing was pretty poor during the second half and it was just dragging on and on.  Ending was a little different than I anticipated but again, we just didn't care!  They should've cut the second half in half and put it in the first half to develop the two main characters more.  Scott said the book was known as one that could never be made into a movie.  Now I see why.  I'm sure the book is fantastic.  It's sad when a movie could've been so good and failed.
 

Leah's Rating: D : I thought this would be a good one to see, after viewing the trailer and hearing about the great reviews it had received.  The first half hour was going somewhere- but then it basically sucked from then on... i wouldn't see it if I were you.

Eric's Rating: D : Started out promising, then got lame.  It grew to be boring, long, and cheesy.  I would not recommend this movie to a friend.

Sebastian's Rating: D+ : yeah it's a chick flick sorta thing, not my style

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