Boring,unbelievable not convincing,BUT does recreate the period.

Rating: 6/10 (20 March 2008)

This film is mis-directed by Joe Wright,badly written by Christopher Hampton & adapted from the novel by Ian McEwan does recreate the atmosphere of 1935 England,& the Dunkirk Beach of 1941. The sets, costumes & cinematography are the best parts of this film & that is the only reason for my rating of 6.
The story is unbelievable, contrived & worst of all unconvincing.
The performers go through their roles,without making me care what happens to them.
This may because the script has elements of far better movies.
The Children's Hour (lying young girl ruining lives)
A Place Under the Sun (tragic love story--factory worker & rich young woman)
Mrs.Miniver (tragic events at Dunkirk)
Watching scenes unfold in this film brought back BETTER memories of the above 3 films.
Now to the cast.
James McAvoy is terribly miscast as our our hero. Keira Knigfhtly as our heroine is a beautiful lady & that is about all.
It takes 3 actresses to portray the young lady who who tells a lie,spurring the inevitable tragic events. Soirese Roman as a cute 13 year old jealous little lying vixen Romola Garai, same gal at age 18 & now a nurse,& many years later Vanessa Redgrave (in cameo role) as on old woman who has just written a novel about what happened.
SPOILER ALERT --James McAvoy spends some time in prison because of the lies. We do not see him in any prison scenes, & when he says it was rough, he shows no emotion of what happened to him. Mr.McAvoy is slight build & very handsome--'nuff' said.
The scenes on the Dunkirk beach are the best scenes in the movie, BUT unless you know the story of Dunkirk (we aren't told where we are) you will be confused.
They used to make many romantic movies with a war background. Some were excellent, some were just good,
ATONEMENT will not be remembered.
NOW I see why it got so few award, It deserved none
Ratings: **1/2 (out of 4) 72 points (out of 100) IMDb 6 (out of 1)