All dressed up with nowhere to go

Rating: 5/10 (14 April 2009)

I saw this during its opening weekend in the theaters but never got around to commenting on it until now. This is a film about a girl who fabricates a lie that sends a guy to prison and tears apart a budding love and to atone for her actions she decides to wear the same hairstyle for the remaining 70 years of her life. Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) is a spoiled 13 year old rich brat who wants to be an author. Her older sister Cecilla (Keira Knightley) and the housekeepers son Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) have a thing for each other in a sexual tension kind of way but Briony likes Robbie too but Robbie scolds Briony down at the swimming hole and gets on her wrong side. spying on Robbie and Cecilla she misinterprets something between them and grows to like Robbie even less. Robbie writes Cecilla a dirty love letter and they finally consummate their passion in a quickly in the library. This is the only romance in the movie and your supposed to believe that it sets the stage for years of undying love between Robbie and Cecilla as they are separated forever by prison and war. A family friend Paul Marshall (Benedict Cumberbatch) who owns a chocolate factory visits the Taliis' and ends up molesting their cousin Lola Quincey (Juno Temple) and he comes to the diner table with scratches visible but nobody puts two and two together. Lola's twin brothers run away one night and a search party is formed to search the estate grounds for them. Paul takes the opportunity of the secluded darkness to force himself on Lola. Briony says she saw the rapist and it was Robbie. Robbie is the only one who couldn't have done it as he is far away from the scene having found the lost boys and is bringing them back but everybody believes Briony and Robbie gets sent to prison only to be let out if he agrees to fight in the front lines of world War II. And on and on this ridiculous story goes in the screen adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel by Hampton. Ramola Garai plays Briony at age 18 and Vanessa Redgrave plays Briony at 80. Wonderful cinematography by Seaus McGarvey and production design by Sarah Greenwood with art direction from Ian Baile but its like a decorated wedding cake. Pretty to look at but not much dietary value except for the Dunkirk scene. I would give this a 5.5 out of 10.