Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #141 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-02-04
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 118 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Atonement reunites Keira Knightley with her Pride & Prejudice director, Joe Wright, for the movie based on Ian McEwan's book of the same name. The result? Once of the most widely acclaimed pictures of 2007.

Atonement tells the story of Cecilia Tallis (Knightley), and the housekeeper's son, Robbie Turner (played by the increasingly prevalent James McAvoy). Set during the heat of 1935, their coming together and the ensuing drama brings in Cecilia's thirteen-year old sister, Briony, whose actions prove to have far-reaching repercussions.

With a terrific cast and superb direction from the aforementioned Wright, it's utterly understandable as to how Atonement has earned itself such praise. Diligently told, with some superb photography, Wright is blessed by terrific central performances by Knightley and McAvoy, both of whom have never been better. His trick also is to get the pacing of the film bang-on, taking his time to build up and layer events before he looks for any kind of pay off.

As a result, as Atonement heads into its latter stages, it proves itself as a top quality drama, with a real emotional punch. Furthermore, it's one of the increasingly rare breed of films that sticks in your head for days after.

As a result, for once, it really is worth seeing what critics the world over have been raving about: Atonement really is something very special indeed. --Jon Foster

DVD Description
On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her older sister Cecilia (Kiera Knightley) strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper's son Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), a childhood friend who, along with Briony's sister, has recently graduated from Cambridge.

By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed forever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had never before dared to approach and will have become victims of the younger girl's scheming imagination, and Briony will have committed a dreadful crime, the guilt for which will colour her entire life.

From the director of Pride & Prejudice and based on the novel by Ian McEwen comes "the best British film in years" - Sunday Times.

"As close to perfect as a movie can get" - Daily Mirror.

"An Essential" 5 Stars - Empire

Synopsis
On a sultry summer day in 1935, an upper-class British family prepares for a dinner party at their country estate. The participants include Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan), a precocious preteen writer, her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley), Cambridge graduate and femme fatale, Robbie Turner (James McEvoy), the housekeeper's virtuous son, who carries a torch for Cecilia, and various visitors and family members. A series of misperceptions, fuelled by the summer heat and Briony's childish hurts and fevered imagination, lead to a dramatic false accusation that lands Robbie in jail. We meet all three characters five years later in the thick of World War II, as foot soldier Robbie prepares for the Dunkirk evacuation and the two estranged sisters train as nurses in London.
Director Joe Wright (PRIDE AND PREJUDICE) deserves high praise for translating Ian McEwan's highly internalised, multilayered tale of guilt, redemption, and the power and limits of the artistic imagination, into a sumptuous visual feast that not only conveys the intricate plot points of the novel, but dives headfirst into the emotional subtleties that make the story so wrenching. Whether any of the characters' actions are ultimately atoned for by the end of the film is a matter of perception, but Wright's sympathetic eye ensures that every player gets a fair trial. The young director favours long, lingering close-ups that trace every flicker of feeling--Ronan's luminous blue eyes clouding over with righteous gravity; the tremors of hurt and anger and love in McEvoy's sensitive face; the defiant jut of Knightley's jaw as it melts into tender affection. The honey-drizzled look of the first two thirds of the film contrasts achingly with the tension and seriousness of the action unfolding (and the grim intensity of the wartime sections), and the scenes on the beach at Dunkirk include masterly camera. ATONEMENT is a powerful story, retold in a way that even diehard fans of the book will appreciate.

Customer Reviews

Excellent, but read the book also.
I can't remember a film having entranced me so much since "Killing Fields" and I can't explain why. I saw the film first and even though I found it very enjoyable, I felt something was missing. I read the book as soon as I could afterwards and then it made much more sense. The director has made one of the most accurate adaptations of novel into film that I've ever seen, but has failed to capture or portray properly some of the minor points which add to the tragedy.

For instance, in the film Briony is seen searching through someone's belongings, but it's not clear whose (in the book, we know it's Cecelia's)for the obscene letter sent by Robbie by mistake (again, in the film it's not very clear what she's searching for). For me, this is the pivotal moment in the story. Briony has already committed the unforgivable crime of opening her sister's private correspondence and then compounds the felony by rifling through her sister's possessions to find the "incriminating" letter to show to her mother and thence the police.

This point is important, because, as one other reviewer has pointed out, Briony's accusation of Robbie sexually assaulting her 15-year-old cousin might not have held as much weight on its own. But the letter, containing as it did possibly the most obscene word anyone could use back in pre-war England, would probably have clinched Robbie's conviction. The word in question certainly got me into serious trouble as a child back in the 50s (Ian McEwan is the same age as me, so he would remember its shock value, even post-war).

Nevertheless, I am fascinated by both the film and the book. This may be because for me Briony never achieves atonement for her crime. By the way, I was so wrapped-up in the film that I never even noticed the (in)famous Dunkirk tracking shot. And despite any historical inaccuracies I will doubtless watch it again.

A 'Go-Between' for the half-witted...
God, I hated this. A 'British' film in the worst possible sense, reminiscent of nothing so much as those ghastly Stephen Poliakoff country house dramas that the BBC seem to feel obliged to show every few months - corpse-stiff, utterly unconvincing, 'deep' and meaningless. Dreadful 'plot' too - the 'I made it all up' coda is one short step from 'it was all a dream', looks like a lift from 'Titanic' (and how desperate is that) and is completely valueless anyway (apart from allowing Vanessa Redgrave to remind us what proper acting looks like). So you made it all up? It's all fiction anyway isn't it? What's your point? Leaden with cliches too... those gorblimey squaddies, oh dear... and that whole plot twist (such as it was) on him writing THE C WORD in a letter was just puerile, crude, vulgar and incongruous. Zero chemistry between Knightley and McAvoy of course (McAvoy appeared to be, rightly, perspiring with shame throughout), though it's hard to imagine chemistry between Kiera Knightley and anything with a pulse (thought her Celia Johnson impression was quite funny though).

Nothing in its favour? Well, it looked all right I suppose, if you like that kind of thing. Apart from the rather stupid tracking shot at Dunkirk, which was completely out of character with the rest of the film and basically had the same effect as a bloke walking around with a big sign reading 'you're watching a film, you know'.

Summary: I'd say twaddle, if that didn't make it sound like it could be quite good fun. More than anything it reminded me of a witless remake of 'The Go-Between' but completely lacking that film's heart and soul. What seems tragic to me is not how far our capability to make a British film has descended since those days (we still make good films from time to time), but how far our critical sensibilities have slipped that this kind of trite, shoddy rubbish can be acclaimed and nominated for awards.

A Lie
Dont believe the hype as this cinematic "must-see" is everywhere and it has the effect of sending the average critic stumbling to his thesaurus in search of gushing adjectives that all but close the book on the Oscar race. The time and setting of such a movie can vary, of course, as can the talent involved, but to a film, we are assured that here, in the dark, we will witness a true epic; a masterpiece of sweeping grandeur and lush, aching beauty that comes but once in a generation. Maybe this will be better than the last great British Classic: The English Patient. Not a chance. The English Patient was in a different league.

There is Cecilia (Knightley), a spoiled, obscenely wealthy nitwit, and at what point we are meant to identify with her is beyond any sound judgment. We soon learn that she is empty, shallow, and bordering on caricature.

That a child's lies could ruin lives is an interesting premise, I suppose, but it seems more than a trifle that we should be at least partly concerned about the lives in question. We know nothing of Briony except that she is a budding writer seemingly lost in the recesses of her imagination, and one who just might be punishing her sister for being more attractive and outgoing. But if spite is her motivation, it's not as interesting that she later writes the novel she does (the "atonement" of the title), for why not attempt to justify her crimes through fiction?

Atonement is a flat, emotionless void in opposition to each and every idea it might accidentally encounter. Without the flow of the written word, this is a trite, humbug of a story; one that includes a wicked tracking shot through the chaos of Dunkirk for no other reason than to bring a shot of life to the proceedings which only serves to highlight an abundance of weakness with but a single moment of strength !!!!