Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5276 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-02-04
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Formats: Box set, PAL
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 239 minutes

Synopsis
Keira Knightley stars in two faithful litery adaptations. Features Atonement, based on the Ian McEwan novel, and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.Set on a sultry summer day in 1935, Atonement begins as an upper-class British family prepares for a dinner party at their country estate. The participants include Briony Tallis, her older sister Cecilia, Robbie Turner, 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.Pride and Prejudice follows the five Bennet sisters as they deal with suitors and love, as their mother desperately schemes to marry them off advantageously.

Customer Reviews

Atonement - What a disappointment!
I can only review Atonement as I have yet to watch P&P - but oh what a disappointment!
I had read all the great Amazon reviews from people saying how wonderful it was; I can only wonder if they were viewing a different film from me!

Where do I start? Well, the whole ambiance was more Sunday night Agatha Christie than cinema classic. The characters were very much one-dimensional; I don't feel we really got inside any of them to understand what made them truly tick (OK, the river scene gives a 'motive' for Briony's actions but little more).

The lighting for much of the time was appalling - golden sepias rather than realism, brightness for the beach scenes at Dunkirk - not at all atmospheric.

And talking of Dunkirk - truly awful. There were staged occurences to say how awful it was ('Leave the wounded behind', shooting the horses) but totally unconvincing. Watch one of the great war films (The Hitler Bunker for example) and you will get a true feeling of war with grit and blood and guts and pain. This was more a trip to the beach by a lot of soldiers.

His wanderings were completely chaotic in a directorial rather than emotional/ dramatic sense. They made no sense and were poorly stages.

And the CGI (Computer generated images)! How bad can they get? Watch this film and you will soon find out.

To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, " This is not a film to be put aside lightly - it should be thrown with great force".