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Atonement (Widescreen Edition)
Average Customer Rating:  
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$29.98
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Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Starring: Keira Knightley, James Mcavoy, Saoirse Ronan, Brenda Blethyn, Harriet Walter
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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Universal
EAN: 0025193328526
Format: AC-3
Label: Universal Studios
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Universal Studios
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2008-03-18
Running Time: 130
Studio: Universal Studios
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
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Editorial Reviews:
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From the award-winning director of Pride and Prejudice comes a stunning, critically acclaimed epic story of love. When a young girl catches her sister in a passionate embrace with a childhood friend, her jealousy drives her to tell a lie that will irrevocably change the course of all their lives forever. Academy Award® nominee Keira Knightley and James McAvoy lead an all-star cast in the film critics are hailing "the year's best picture" (Thelma Adams, US Weekly).
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Drama that doesn't cut deep enough
Comment: I'm not going to spend a lot of time discussing this film, because quite frankly it isn't worthy of that much attention. But since it is a British period piece based on a prestigious novel, a lot of people went nuts over it. Essentially the plot deals with a young girl, who driven by jealousy, tells a lie that ends up ruining the lives of two people. The title, as you have probably gathered, refers to her attempts to atone for this one mistake. There are lots of things wrong with this movie. For starters, the acting isn't up to the material. James McAvoy and Keira Knightley fizzle in the lead roles. The central plot device, i.e. the lie that destroys their lives, is rather unplausible. It seems to me that any kind of real detective work would have revealed the truth. But the biggest problem is that the movie is emotionally empty. Shouldn't a film that deals with a character's guilt and remorse sting with the ache of regret and sorrow? You never feel anything for any of these characters. It's only in the final moments, when Vanessa Redgrave shows up that the film generates any real emotion. By that time, you stopped caring about any of what was going on a long time ago.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A moment of envy lives on with tragic consequences...
Comment: What is so very interesting about this film is the sense by which you cannot uniformly condemn the central character, Briony, for her vengeful actions as a child. It would be too easy to dismiss her as hateful and motivated by envy, but is this a fair assessment of a child's view? Are we being asked to question the nature of her style of upbringing, being sweet, nice, productive, even tempered, ordered and denying base human emotion to the point of barely having the capaicty to register such feeling and thus allow it to journey, untamed, unacknowledged in our actions?
Did she believe what she saw? Was she manipulated by those who were perhaps not as innocent as they claimed to be for fear of lost power and respect?
The damage done is far reaching, compellingly tragic and infuriatingly inequitable. The conclusion almost viewed by the central figure as having finally reached a virtual pay back, her life for those she ruined seemingly, so unwittingly.
This a complex study of intense, raw human emotion and both the key and peripheral performances are beautifully executed. Immensley tragic and stunningly beautiful in terms of cinematography and musical score.
The capturing of the dynamic and historic essence of the time is perfection and one is filled with the kind of questions about the human condition that are so incredibly difficult to answer affirmatively and rely upon.
This along with the sense that Brionay is not so much an intensely spiteful child as a child whoes unmanaged longings express themselves with a sense of prolonged tragedy any child might easily fall victim too.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Boring and Depressing, Liked the twist at the end
Comment: This is a movie about how not to be in life. In fact the supporting character who reeks havoc in the movie, Briony, has got to be one of my least favorite people of all time.
That being said, this is a beautiful looking movie and started out as something I liked. As time goes on it degrades into something dark and depressing; which war often is. It is an interesting look into that era.
I watched this at a girls' movie night and the general consensus was that it was pretty boring. We decided it must be the surprise ending that got it all of the awards, that and the beautiful settings in the beginning of the movie. The ending convinced me that Briony is the most selfish, evil (yet not evil) character ever. That and in general the movie was just depressing.
I am glad I saw it, I would never watch it again.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Hiss!! Boo!! Laughably Overrated & Boring Film
Comment: Wow, if Atonement is the "Best Picture" of 2007, then Hollywood was really scraping the bottom of the barrel for candidates. After hearing about all of the accolades received by "Atonement", my wife and I decided to rent this film and give it a shot. After all, anything voted "Best Picture" has got to be pretty decent. Right? Um, yeah. I guess we were wrong. I have now completely lost all respect and regard for some of these so-called "professional movie critics". Atonement is painfully slow-moving, with dull characters and a complete lack of the dramatic. By the time we reached the mid-way point, this movie had lost me completely and I found myself wishing that it would just end already.
Some people out there would surely accuse me of needing to be spoon-fed nothing but action, violence, and gore. Nonsense. Try watching the movie "Amadeus", which is one of my favorite movies of all time and achieves a wonderfully dramatic and moving storyline without the use of such bells and whistles. Truly a masterpiece of filmmaking and storytelling. None of this is to be found in "Atonement", which is simply 130 minutes of crust. There is a fine line between character/story development, and simply nothing happening outside of boring and pointless dialogue. Atonement falls into the latter of the two categories.
I'm sorry, but adding a WWII theme and dragging the story out to a 2+ hour run time does not simply result in an "epic" film, nor does it put the film into the same category as "Titanic", or even a "Pearl Harbor". Clearly the makers of Atonement were shooting for this type of result (Historic theme + Love = great movie) but this film fails on so many fronts, and is laughably overrated.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Reasonably well done
Comment: Because I really enjoyed the book I have put off seeing the movie for some time, concerned that the movie would only disappoint, as is so often the case with the book-to-movie transition. And now that I've seen the movie I don't think it disappointed, but as is also the often the case in the book-to-movie transition, there was so much great material from the book that just couldn't adapt to the silver screen.
Having said that, there were some great redeeming qualities to the movie. The acting was superb. The scenery of England was beautiful. The re-creations of the scenes of the English military's evacuation from Dunkirk were outstanding. The storyline of the movie was true to the book, accounting for the major scenes that develop the story. The screenplay and the director were certainly successful in developing the circumstances of juvenile misunderstanding that led to heartbreak, misplaced justice, elusive love and passion, and ultimately lost life and a lifetime of regret.
As with the book, this movie does not convey joyous occasions, but rather some hard-learned lessons about life for a young girl that will haunt her forever. Ones for which she will never be able to truly atone, but only pray for forgiveness.
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