Thou Shall Atone For Your Sins, How About this Picture?

Rating: 5/10 (19 March 2008)

A young girl's lie forever alters the destiny of her sister and the latter's boy friend. This is what we are told in the advertising for the best picture nominee of 2007-"Atonement."
The director should atone for giving us this kind of picture. We are dealing with nothing more than a little brat who accused her sister's boy friend of molesting a younger cousin of theirs.
The story would have been far more exciting if the class angle issue would have been emphasized instead. The lad accused of the molestation was the son of a cook in the house. Despite his education and ambition to become a doctor, no one believed him, probably because of class distinction, and as a result he suffered imprisonment.
The picture alternately fast forwards and goes back to make its point.
The ending is most shocking, when some 40+ years later, the girl is now an elderly woman, portrayed by the venerable hag Vanessa Redgrave. As a child, Briony loved to write and it was probably her precocious attitude that stirred her imagination. Redgrave admits to the fact that the book that she has written was a take off on the lives of the young man and her sister, both of whom, really had died during World War 11. She is atoning for her sin in writing the book of how their lives should have been.
Of all people to play a person atoning for her sins, Vanessa Redgrave! That witch should be atoning for her 1978 presence at the Oscars, when after winning for best supporting actress in "Julia," she delivered her diatribe against Zionism. Practice what you preach Vanessa and atone for first things first.
As for the movie, it is an utterly boring and is so slow paced, that it could have been told in half an hour.