Beautifully made and performed but .....

Rating: 8/10 (9 March 2008)

This is a film that has had so much care lavished upon it in the making. The film has a stunning and authentic look, the performances are all very good and it is intelligently written. But it still does not work well for me. I'm not especially a fan of Ian McEwan and perhaps that is the problem. The film does not seem to me to establish the love affair between the two main characters to be as significant as it needs to be for the remainder of the film - I think that is a problem inherent in the book also (I've not read it, implied from the script though). I don't really care about any of these characters either, bourgeois Brits down on their luck, so tough. The mistake made by the young girl in lying and thus destroying her life as well as the lives of the lovers and disrupting their family relations is an interesting element. Most interesting is perhaps her continued arrogance depicted in her later years, when she is soon to die, for she continues to find truth a difficult concept to master. It is a thoughtful movie and beautiful to watch but for me something's missing.