A Masterpiece? NoMore Like Masterpiece Theatre

Rating: 7/10 (3 June 2015)

There is an Audience for This Type of Thing. Frustrated Females, Film Critics, and Those that Have the Patience of the English. The Film is Mounted Like Masterpiece Theatre, Hallmark Greeting Cards, and it is the Mounting of a More Personal Nature that Propels the Story that Spans Years and the Consequences that Result from "Bearing False Witness".
The Angst of the Story is that the False Witness is Beared by an Egghead Aspiring Writer in Her Early Teens and the Guilt She Carries as the Lives of Those She Falsely Witnessed are Affected Beyond Repair.
Saoirse Ronan who Plays the Girl Gives the Best Performance and Got an Oscar Nomination (one of 7 the Film received). Keira Knightley has a Face to Die For, Her Close-Ups are Stunning and She Delivers a Good One Too, but James Mcavoy is a Bit Stiff and Expressionless Most of the Time. Benedict Cumberbatch, if You were Wondering, is Peripheral.
Speaking of Stunning, the Cinematography Surely is, but it is One of Those "Look at Me" Displays of Natural Beauty Backdropped Here for Not Much More Than That. It Doesn't Add Much to the Already Awkward Modern Trend to Time-Shift and Time-Shift Some More as Facts and Situations are Withheld and then Revealed.
If Anyone Thinks that Quentin Tarantino hasn't had a Profound Effect on Films Since He Showed Up with Reservoir Dogs (1992), Needs to Think Again. In This Type of Thing it Comes Off as Belonging in Another Genre. It's Too Pretentiously Clever for an "Upstairs Downstairs" Story About Snooty Brits in the Middle of the Twentieth Century.
The Film is Overrated Because it Feels Like a Parade of Self-Consciousness. Using the Aforementioned Shifting and a Banging Typewriter as an Instrument, Not Only Symbolic Because Main Characters are Writers but is Pushed to Become Musical. Not the Subtlety This Type Begs For. Much Like the Dunkirk Scene, as "Look at Me" as it Gets. Want One More? How About the Heavy Handed Sex Scene in the "Library"? Get it? This is About a Writer.
A Moderately Effective Heart Pump of a Film for it's Target Audience, from a Novel that has Gained Praise, but if You Feel You Don't Qualify for that Audience, it Might be Best to Stay Away from This Because it is Likely to Disappoint and Be a Bore.