Glad I knew nothing about it in advance

Rating: 10/10 (22 February 2008)

This is a romance set in England just prior to and during WW2. This was all I knew about the film before seeing it. I didn't read the novel. I had no real desire to see the film--it was more a matter of a convenient show time rather than being on my must-see list. If you do not know much about the film or novel, please do not read further.
The film begins in a generally conventional way for a British period piece, but then a few events are shown from two different points of view--one which is objective and one which is very subjective. Showing the different points of view have fractured the time line, so in the second half of the film, the shifts in time continue--but is it also a shift from objective to subjective POV's again?
The ending of this film was profoundly moving. I had no idea at all that Vanessa Redgrave was in this film. Her three or four minutes, in extreme close-up, are perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Note what happens to your hopes during this film. The first half of the film ends with Robbie being unjustly arrested and hauled off. In the next scene, several years later, we find Robbie in uniform in France, and so we assume that the injustice has been corrected, otherwise he would be in prison. Then we find that he signed up in order to be released from prison. We then find him meeting Cecelia again, but this was prior to the scene in France. Will the lovers eventually be reunited? The situation at Dunkirk becomes increasingly hopeless. After the rescue from Dunkirk, we are surprised and greatly relieved to find the lovers have been reunited--just what we hoped for.
And then there was the scene with Vanessa Redgrave, set in the present. The hoped-for conclusion was just fiction, and the truth was tragic. But the creation of the fiction, which granted the characters their hopes and wishes, was the only way to correct the injustice which had been done to them.
I saw this film a second time, after knowing its secrets, and I enjoyed it even more. The actors are uniformly excellent. James McAvoy is even better than excellent--notice the scene in the restaurant, when his shame is so great a burden that he does not even presume to look Cecelia in the eye. This is an outstanding film.