A disappointing failure

Rating: 3/10 (28 May 2008)

In watching this film, and other recent films, it occurs to me that film making is returning to the era of silent films. By this I mean that scenes with minimal dialog or no dialog are becoming more common. This is not bad in itself since this is film and not a novel; however, in silent films the scenes advance the plot--in this film they do not. The silent scenes are poses that neither advance the plot nor shed insight into the characters. Poses, no matter how well shot, do not comprise a scene.
For the film to hold together, character motivations are important. This is really what is missing in this film. There was no reason presented for Briony to behave as she did, envy comes to mind but clearly this is not her motive. The original setting was 1936 upper class England, so the dialog among the children did not fit the times, which makes the transparent motive, the child's overwrought imagination, suspect.
Since I have not read the novel I can not comment on whether the characters and motivations were more clearly defined. But the film is a failure in both plot and character development.