Note to Self: Don't . . .

Rating: 7/10 (17 December 2007)

Note to self: Don't get cute with events in history.
Atonement is a very good film with superb individual performances and lovely cinematography. When writing about an event as well recorded in history as the Dunkirk evacuation, why try to stylize it with absurd surreality? The ferris wheel, circus horses and singing choir did nothing for the story. A grittier, more realistic depiction would have been more appropriate. When writing about and filming war, regardless of the romance, the end product's realism will always be held up against true war movies like Band of Brothers of Saving Private Ryan.
The story is conceptually great, but with a few holes. The viewer is expected to believe a sensitive, 13 year-old, aspiring writer can be such a wicked bad seed as to send an innocent man, whom she loves, to prison by maintaining a fabrication through a trial. A trial that glaringly doesn't exist in the story.