A film in two parts; one excellent, one, well, best not to think about the second half

Rating: 5/10 (3 March 2014)

Am I allowed to give two marks for the two halves of a film? If I could, it would have been 8 for the first hour and a 3 for the second hour.
The first half was wonderful. Wonderful plot with the directing of the excellent cast everything it should be and the scenery, cinematography etc there to SUPPORT what was going on, not just to be there to carry the film.
The awards this film won must have been given for this first hour as the second half didn't deserve them.
When the second half started, we couldn't believe what a let down it all was. The film just seemed to suddenly meander from scene to scene with no real purpose and even less plot. Joe Wright's usually astute direction of the story seemed to disappear and we wondered if he hadn't been replaced by somebody else when he lost interest in the project and that the new guy didn't have a clue what to do with the story he was left.
Scenes were included simply because they were visually dramatic, not because they added to the plot. For example, the lengthy scene done in one take of Jame McIvoy wandering around the beach with troops everywhere. It accomplished nothing in terms of adding to the plot with its extreme length but it certainly was visually stunning. Why film it? The term "self-indulgence" by the director came to mind.
And the scene with the older Briany and the French soldier in the hospital. What was the point? Was it supposed to make me feel differently about Briany? It didn't. Did it relate to something in the book that Wright had left out when deciding what to include in the movie? Possibly, but not having read the book I don't know. It just felt pointless.
Filming clichés soon appeared one after the other for lack of anything else to do. Lady MacBeth scrubbing her hands to get the blood out? Soldiers walking through a field of poppies? A character standing in front of a giant screen showing two lovers kissing? Lights being turned on one by one as another key character walks toward the camera? The underwater image towards the film's end? Come on! I mean, really? That's all you can come up with?
"Drifting aimlessly" another phrase that came to mind when thinking about the second half of the movie. It just felt like Wright didn't know what to do with the material so thought he'd shoot some nice scenes and put them together and hope it all worked. It didn't.
Arguably, the point of most of the second half is only finally revealed in the closing 5 minutes with the dramatic narrative conclusion. I get that. But by then it was far too late. We were annoyed, we'd lost interest, we were bored and we no longer cared.