Much ado about nothing

Rating: 4/10 (12 September 2007)

I decided to see Atonement when I saw its trailer: nice shots, life in England just before WW2, an interesting human drama, etc. I began to worry a little bit when I heard a critic say that "it is in The English Patient territory" - a film I deeply disliked - and worried even more when I read comments saying that Atonement would be a strong candidate for an Oscar, since Oscars are awards given on the basis of the commercial success of films, instead of their artistic merits.
My worst fears were confirmed: Atonement is a pretentious but ultimately vacuous film. It reminded me of that famous line, "he didn't say anything, but he said it so beautifully!". It is very well shot, the actors are decent - if a little bit wooden - the locations magnificent and its basic plot is fine. But it never involves you. I found myself yawning, making shopping lists in my head and wondering what time it was.
The plot? Without giving away anything important (not that there is anything much to give away) the film turns around a13-year old girl who, through a mixture of naiveté and jealousy ruins the life of a young man and many years later tries to make amends for it. It takes place in the late 30s and the 13-year old girl is one of the daughters of an upper middle class, wealthy family: beautiful country house, gardens, servants, the whole British cliché. The boy whose life is ruined is the son of one of the caretakers, but he's been taken under the wing of the family, has gone to good schools and is planning to study medicine at Cambridge, which means he knows how to wear a dinner jacket (when he's not carrying suitcases for weekend visitors).
The problem is that the movie tries to be "arty" while having mass appeal. It uses quite a few fashionable tricks, such as an unorthodox sound track (lots of typing noises), high volume sound effects and long, "artistic" tracking shots. It never manages to involve spectators in the events that it describes and, ultimately, it's but a pretentious and shallow attempt to describe the way some people lived in England at the time. Uninteresting, boring and fake. Or, to quote the classics, "much ado about nothing".