A powerful, stunningly directed and ultimately harrowing film.

Rating: 7/10 (5 February 2008)

Atonement (2007)
Top 10 - 2007
Atonement has garnered considerable critical acclaim: 7 Academy Award nominations, 14 BAFTA nominations and won the Best Picture (Drama) at this years Golden Globes. The film will go on to win a number of accolades, some fully deserved, however, this is not the Best Picture of the year. Although this film had unlimited potential and it is beautifully translated onto the screen, I do not believe it extracted all the power and destructiveness of the love relationship present. Somehow at the end, I did not feel as sorry, as hurt and as saddened with the characters' ultimate fate as I could have been. However, heavily criticising this film, which is a remarkable achievement in storytelling, direction, editing, cinematography and even acting is highly unfair.
During the course of a few summer days at a mansion in the plush countryside of England, a tragic event occurs that causes irrevocable damage to the gardener of the estate (James McAvoy) and one of the daughters of the wealthy family who has fallen in love with him (Keira Knightley). After the rape of one of the little cousins during one night, Cecilia's little sister claims that it was Robbie (McAvoy) who had raped her cousins; her decisions having been fuelled by a coarse letter that Robbie accidentally sent to Cecilia and seeing her sister having sex with Robbie in the library. Of course it wasn't Robbie who raped Cecilia's little cousin, it was in fact her brother's wealthy friend (an owner of a chocolate factory). This event unsettles everything, when Robbie is sent to prison and later given the choice of entering the army to fight in France (at the beginning of WWII) and so the ultimately tragic course of the film begins.
Atonement is not a bad film. It deserves all its nominations and almost all its praise. However this beautiful, semi-melodramatic film is not this year's best film; not in a year with the Coens' 'No Country for Old Men' and Paul Thomas Anderson's 'There Will Be Blood'.
This film could have potentially been unsurpassed by any film this year, however, in my opinion the character relationships were not magnetic and compelling enough and at times I thought the film wondered slightly just to fill the time, for the expected (but still) powerful ending.
Some will undeniably feel more respect towards Joe Wright' fine film and some will definitely consider it this year's best film, all I have to say is that this is definitely a film that deserves to be watched, even if you are not fond of period epics, Atonement will not disappoint.
7/10