'Brief Encounter' for the noughties fails to deliver

Rating: 3/10 (8 July 2010)

The next time a reviewer questions some of the scenes in my script by saying: 'yes Colin very nice but how are the characters developing and do these actions really drive forward the narrative?' I'm gonna leap across the desk and smack him/her across the head with a copy of this DVD and snarl: 'they didn't bother in this movie so why should I? OR! Or I could say it was written exclusively for Mr Joe Wright and such frippery doesn't matter. As long as it looks pretty and is very expensive to create he'll be perfectly happy. And so were my daughter and wife - they loved this film and hate me for hating it.
I've not read the book so can't comment on that, but as the story appears in the film it doesn't work. I read somewhere if you are adapting a complicated novel it is always advisable to chose one character and tell their story. On the DVD they claim it was Briony's story, then why did we spend so much time in France meeting characters she didn't meet? Or was that also just a chapter from the book she was writing as well? I don't know and unfortunately I don't care.