To be at one with oneself

Rating: 7/10 (17 February 2013)

A mainly glum, disturbing, and strangely creepy fiction of doomed romance. In one of the features on my disc, one of the participants describes the house, which is a character, as creepy. I haven't read the book, or any of McEwan's tales, but this depressing story could be his self-addressed excuse for telling porky pies, and makes him feel better. Many (most ? all ?) gloomy writers make use of other people's misfortunes, and their own, when creating their fantasies. Perhaps they sometimes even create these misfortunes themselves.
The way the narrative is filmed continually reminds us that a lot of it, perhaps all of it, is not actually happening: this socially divisive love story is end-to-end imaginary. That must be why it rambles over the place. The narrative is intercut with puzzling flash-forwards, anticipating later events. Did Briony actually see two figures clutching at each other on the library ladder? Or did she just make it up in her embryonic little scribbler's head ? The bookish setting, suspended among stacks of literature, is appropriate. All art is unreal, if you will; but there are degrees of unreality. In this case the reality of English interwar types (Cambridge or Oggsford men) during the mid-1930s is quite distancing, even though I was sufficiently alive myself to recall the run up to WW2. This distance annoys and clouds. Still, the package is not uninteresting, very well-made, well-dressed, well-acted, and all that. Seemed like an excessive amount of time at Dunkirk. Was Dunkirk really like that ? I can't quite believe it. There really are rather too many plot holes, and I had one question. Why didn't the young redhead, Lola, come clean ? However, this has been more or less answered on this site. She was out to snare a chocolate millionaire, no matter how creepy. I was going to give this eight, but now it's seven.