130 min Marlboro commercial

Rating: 4/10 (29 February 2008)

I very much enjoyed the look and feel of this movie but for it to be a masterpiece requires being emotionally invested in it, which I was not.
The romance between the two leads was unconvincing (perhaps in the book it was better). Also it was not clear to me whether Briony knew she was lying about Robbie being the rapist or actually believed it was him. If she believed it than she did nothing wrong (hence nothing to atone for). But even if she knew she was lying, I had no sympathy for the lovers so didn't really care. Both of them knew this young girl had read a sexually explicit letter and caught them having sex but said absolutely nothing to her to explain what was going on and reassure her that it was alright.
Another reviewer called this a middle class drama. And that ultimately is what keeps me from really connecting with this movie. It is not tragic enough to be a tragedy (or more accurately tragedy is now too common to be tragic).
Finally, whoever made this movie was either financed by Phillip Morris or has a massive smoking fetish. There must have been 30 full minutes of people smoking in this movie with it seemed like about 20 light-ups. Although this smoking frequency may have been true to the time I found it extremely distracting.