Atonement

Rating: 6/10 (12 February 2008)

Atonement initially fails to deliver on any major level. Most of the time the plot remains fairly slow moving and somewhat routine. Hoewever it works due to the fact that it is very powerfully acted by the lead roles namely Romola Garai, Keira Knightley, Saorise Roman and James McAvoy. You can tell that this story was initially a novel and in the opening sequence it is difficult to determine whether this is meant to be a musical or a period drama, which it turns out to be. On saying that, unlike many clichéd period dramas this one actually delivers something of subsidence in the form of the clever twist at the end. The great tragedy of this story is that it shows what can happen when a child comes into contact with a situation that they don't understand and due to the time in which they are, no one is prepared to give them any actual guidance as to how to behave or to respond to that type of situation. We can be thankful I suppose that we live in the age that we do where people are a bit more clued up about male and female relationships then they were 60 or 70 years ago .