I just didn't care!

Rating: 1/10 (21 March 2008)

The tragedy and poignancy of this wartime love story should've torn my sentimental heart out. But I found I was checking my watch repeatedly during the last hour since I figured out by then that nothing much of great cinematic significance was going to happen.
A privileged and obnoxious precocious rich girl makes a false allegation regarding a decent and mildly likable working class man, and she is believed by virtue of her station in life, effectively ruining his life. This may make some deep statement about the entrenched class system in Britain, but this interesting point is never developed in favour of shallow Harlequin romance sappiness.
I just didn't given a damn about anyone in this movie. Keira Knightley, despite her striking physical beauty, remains just as aloof and unlikeable here as in her incarnations of Elizabeth Swan and Elizabeth Bennett. And I expected I would identify more with McAvoy's character, as many if not most men hugely fear being misunderstood in relationships and thus vulnerable to vexatious allegations of sexual impropriety. But I found so little endearing in him--he by no means impressed me as the quintessential romantic hero who I wanted to get the girl despite ostensibly insurmountable obstacles.
The Vanessa-Redgrave-as-Briony revelation at the end of the film was a mildly entertaining "twist", but still the fact that Robbie and Cecilia were casualties of the war before they could be reunited did not move me much at all.
In short, it ain't Casablanca. The star-crossed-lovers-in-wartime thing has been done before Atonement. And it has been done better.
Despite the invective of another review, I am very attentive to film music and I really liked the score. The incorporation of an old typewriter as a percussion instrument at points was striking and original and I really enjoyed it.
The film really deserves a 6 (mildly entertaining and not a complete waste of time), but I give it a 1 in my attempts to offset the abundance of pathetically misguided reviews that are claiming to find cinematic genius here.