Atonement

Rating:	★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Romance

Kiera Knightly as Cecilia,

James McAvoy as Robbie,

Saoirse Ronan as Briony at 13, Romola Garai as Briony at 18, Vanessa Redgrave as Briony at Old Woman

Short Summary:

Briony, a child of 11, had a crush on Robbie, a farmboy. Robbie liked Cecilia, Briony’s older sister. Cecilia Liked Robbie back. Briony and Cecilia where wealthy daughters of a fine Englishman. Their cousins Lola and two twin boys were staying over for the summer at Briony’s house. From afar, Briony sees Cecilia and Robbie, it looked to her that Cecilia took off her clothes in front of Robbie. This just perturbed her. The scene will then explain what that had happened. Robbie and cecillia were in a row, and Cecilia had to get something from the fountain and she was not naked afterall. Afterwards, Robbie went home to write an apology letter to Cecilia, in the heat of summer he wrote a lewd letter describing Cecilia’s vagina. Then he wrote another serious apology letter. He gave the letter to Briony to give to Cecilia. Briony opened to discover the lewd letter, Robbie gave it by mistake. Cecilia read the letter. Later, Cecilia and Robbie were passionately making love in the library, which Briony once again witnessed. Suddenly, their twin cousins went missing. Everyone went out to look for the two boys. While Briony was looking, he spotted Lola on the grass apparently being raped. She was not sure who attacked her. But Briony told everyone that it was Robbie and that she was sure that it was Robbie. Robbie came back, found the twins and was arrested for the crime he did not commit.

Later, we see Robbie in the military, he volunteered instead of rotting away in prison. Cecilia knew of this, and told Robbie to promise her that he’d come back to her. To their love. (next would be what I thought was a never-ending scene of the toils of war, nothing happening, no one speaking)

Briony on the other hand, volunteered as nurse instead of continuing her studies in Cambridge. She wanted to be useful in the war. She mended the wounds, held a French men as is died. War was cruel. Then she finds out where Cecilia lives and consistently sends her sister letters of her well being. She wanted to talk to Cecilia about what she did many years ago when she was a child. Before going to Cecilia’s place, she attended the wedding of Lola. She saw that Lola ended up marrying the very same man to raped her many years ago. (this was not Robbie, this was a guy who owned a chocolate factory and is a friend of Briony’s brother.) Briony continued on to cecilia’s house. She wanted to make things right. She apologized to Cecilia, and Cecilia was nowhere near in forgiving her. Then we see Robbie coming out of Cecilia’s room. He was furious. He hated Briony and wanted to strangle her there and then. Only Cecilia stopped him. They decided that Briony should testify again and tell everyone the truth on who really was at fault and hence to clear Robbie’s name. The scene ended showing Cecilia and Robbie kissing from the window while Briony left. Afterwards, we see Briony as an Old woman. She was being interviewed for her book, Atonement. This book was revealed to be autobiographical and that all names and events where kept intact. This was her final book. She will also reveal that the ending written was not what had really happened. Robbie died in war. And Cecilia was killed in one of the bombs. Briony was not able to visit Cecilia, the whole scene in Cecilia’s house was not real. She didn’t have the courage to go. Nothing was fixed between her and her sister. But she wanted to give Cecilia and Robbie the happiness that they did not experience because of her. In that way, she wrote about the life that they should have shared together. That was her Atonement.



Thoughts:
Snooze Fest 2008. This movie should join Marie Antoinette in a sure-snooze-award. Did you ever get that feeling when you’re half-way through a movie that you’re regretting why you even watched it in the first place? But since you’re HALF_WAY, you can’t stop now, or you’d have wasted an hour of your life? That’s how I felt watching this critically acclaimed piece of bore. I really don’t know what the director was aiming for in this movie, it had hardly any lines. The characters where not built up enough that you’d sympathize for their love and longing for each other. Surprisingly, I just wanted Robbie to die so that something exciting would happen in the movie. There was this long over-emphasized war scene, where all they did was walk and the view was just panned. All the soldiers shown and nothing was said. Here’s the thing, I don’t care for Robbie and I don’t care for Cecilia. I most definitely love epics, where the lovers where separated forcibly because of the war. I love those! I liked cold mountain, letters from iwo jima, Casablanca.. every epic love story there is! But the love story here was just sooo trivial, or the foundations were trivial. It seemed like Cecilia had sex with Robbie because Robbie mistakenly sent her a very lewd letter describing how he wanted to lick her… the exact word used in the movie was cunt. After that, they were passionately in love with each other. And the long unending scenes of excruciatingly painful nothingness surrounded the whole movie. We were so bored with it, that every time they showed Robbie, we thought that he looked liked.. “russel crowe”, later “Elijah wood” later, “a-plain-english-pale-faced-man”.

At one point, we were just describing the whole scene as it unfolds! “he is now walking. He went into a house, he looked down, he went out again, he stares in the horizon with that wistful longing, he watches a movie longing for cecilia” there were NO lines! And nothing was freakin happening! All he did was walk and walk with other soldiers.

I would just like to say that Kiera Knightly was super boney.

The most interesting part was when of course the scene went back to Briony. She was the most interesting character. Robbie and Cecilia sucked. All the violence was shown on her part, how badly the men were wounded. And I loved the part where she was interviewed about the book she wrote. It was the BEST part of the book. I did not expect the ending to be that way. How, it was revealed to be ended differently. I’m wondering now what’s written in the real book, which the movie was based on. It was good, yet it still did not redeem the whole boring film. More than that, It did not make me feel any differently towards the dying characters, I never liked them in the first place. Unlike Romeo and Juliet, or Neo and Trinity, you’d really feel their love.. here its just like, what? You fell in love because of cunt? Hehe. That’s all folks.