Over-hyped.

Rating: 4/10 (10 September 2007)

With all its expensive production values, this film, like so many others, did not insist on clear diction, even in important scenes. Keira Knightley was a particularly bad offender; but there were many others.
The camera work was often arty but irritating and restless, and I am sorry to say that on the whole I thought it was a meretricious film. A blessed moment of clear diction and moving acting came nearly at the end, in the brief scene of Briony as an old woman (Vanessa Redgrave), and that was then promptly followed by the last few corny and sentimental shots on the sea shore.