Masterpiece. Oustanding.

Rating: 10/10 (29 July 2015)

Tonight I watched for the fourth time the film Atonement based on the book with same title written by Ian McEwan. I remember the first time I watched this film. It was winter of 2007 and I had gone to the cinema with my sister and our parents.
The film came to an end and I remember myself not wanting to leave the room. It was the first and only time I felt like that. Even though I was so young, I felt so enchanted and heartbroken that I didn't want to leave the room until I don't know what.
This film is about forgiveness. The main characters are three young people. Cecilia, Robbie and Briony. Cecilia and Briony are sisters with the first being some years older than the other. Robbie is a young man to whom both sisters feel attracted to. But when by mistake Robbie gives Briony a letter to forward it to her sister, in which he admitted in a vulgar way that he wanted her, Briony feels betrayed by both Cecilia and Robbie and takes the decision to destroy both of their lives by testifying false that she saw Robbie molesting on her cousin Lola.
Police arrested Robbie and gave him the choice: Prison or Army. He chose army.
As years past Cecilia grew up to become a nurse and Briony was being prepared to join University but in the last minute she decided to become a nurse too, thinking that this was the only way she could help and in someway erase part of what she had done some years ago.
The film follows the lives of the three people. Robbie facing the cruelty of war, Cecilia helping in any way she can the soldiers and Briony never having forgotten of the awful thing she had done. Just before the end we see Cecilia and Robbie in their home living a happy life after war with him still facing some difficulties, and Briony visiting them to apologize which apology was never accepted.
And at the very end we see an old woman giving an interview. She's Briony Tallis the well known writer who gives an interview regarding her latest novel "Atonement". As she explains the end of the book is imaginary because Cecilia and Robbie never met again after the arrest. They both died, some days apart and this book ,as she says, has a happy ending not because she wants to lie to people but because she wants to give the two lovers the ending they deserved but never had because of her.
This film is truly a masterpiece. I wouldn't have watched it four times if it wasn't. And for the first time I feel that the film is better than the novel. Keira Knightely and James McAvoy are OUTSTANDING. They give the passion and tension their characters deserve. I give this film 10 out of 10 stars. There is not a single thing I didn't like or I would change. This film makes me cry every single time not so much because of the two lovers who didn't have the chance to enjoy their youth and love but because Briony lived a life in guilt. She was responsible for destroying two peoples lives and not only that. She never had the chance to do the right thing. And after the end she dies with her memory faded from some disease. And now I'm thinking of it, maybe that's a gift given to her because she had felt truly sorry. The gift was that she would for once feel innocent and kind. Having forgotten of what she did. She dies.