A more pointless film I've never seen (SPOILER WARNING)

Rating: 4/10 (16 December 2007)

I didn't think a film has been made to promote a trailer before, but if one was, this was it. Seriously lacking in the screenplay department, very little character development and a pointless kind of narrative drive that reveals itself in the end. I really enjoyed the first 1/3 of the film, but after it went off to war and then into a dream-like lala land, and then ruining itself in the end I found most of the information pointless. Now I'll be perfectly clear. I understood the meaning of the film, I understood it's called "Atonement" for a reason and that the character of the girl and her evolution was really what the film was about. It was really a story about her fiction and her guilt and coming to grips with it by making up another lie in a way, but seriously then, why not focus a little bit more screen time on the girl growing up then, instead of pointlessly following James McAvoy around for near and hour in one of the most mind-numbingly loud and obnoxious series of long takes I've ever seen. Every one says, "Oh, the book is so emotional! Nothing could compare to it, no adaptation could come close. And you're right, but this movie, err...very long string of awesome cinematography doesn't come close to so many other of it's contemporaries. I knew I was supposed to feel something for all of these characters, but I just wanted the film to be focused more on them and less on the editor, cinematographer and director patting themselves on the back. I liked "Pride & Prejudice" even though I was dead set against it. I can understand why some critics would like this and compare to that besides the same creative team being behind both. But no one will remember this film. The trailer is the film. The film is the trailer. There isn't a whole lot more to say than that.