I wanted to like this film a lot more

Rating: 7/10 (8 December 2007)

The film's been compared with The English Patient; but it doesn't quite measure up.
The actresses who portray Briony all turn in fine performances. McAvoy delivers a most believable and harrowing portrayal of Robbie Turner. The consequences of his overwhelming betrayal by Briony Tallis. His gradual physical collapse during the British retreat at Dunkirk. McAvoy's eternally hopeful yet pragmatic Turner never surrenders, even as his flesh and blood are about to finally fail him.
Wright displays polished excellence in the unedited shot that he orchestrated to present the milieu of the beach at Dunkirk -- not only for the handling of the steadycam, but for composition over the course of the shot. Principal characters weave in and completely out, transporting the viewer directly into the midst of the confusion, suffering and hope. That scene is nothing less than brilliant.
No matter how many excellent piece parts there are in Joe Wright's film, the whole fails to exceed their sum.
The first third of the film is where I find fault. My suspension of disbelief was rudely broken, more than once, in there.
When a writer tells a story, the reader is forced to go by the words that are on the page. Even when the reader "reads between the lines," the reader does so with the mind's eye, not with independent physical vision.
It works, on the page, whenever Briony's version of crucial events is presented in advance of Robbie's and Cee's experience of the same; because McEwan can quickly conjure up a full and satisfying enough description of outward appearances and inner states of mind. McEwan can take leaps and keep us exactly where he wants us to be as readers.
Film, however, is a medium of explicit vision and the viewer's eye can't help but wander far and gaze deeply.
When Wright shows us Briony's mildly distorted view of things, first, it undermines the story of the budding love between Robbie and Cee. It also steals momentum from the drama surrounding the three. The mild depiction of Briony's skewed "view" of crucial Robbie/Cee events deflates those events before they are fully savored by the audience, in as dissatisfying a manner as coitus interruptus. The sweetness of the romance is soured before the audience is permitted to taste it.
A thinking audience also has to ponder how a 13 year old girl, who writes pithy plays, who has formed so sharp an opinion about what the "foulest word, ever" must be, could then begin to so thoroughly "misinterpret" all that she comes to witness one hot summer day. The love scene in the library, as Briony saw it, has nothing whatsoever in common with the later rape scene (that is flashed once in real time and again as a vivid remembrance) that Briony later witnessed. Her accusation of Robbie is impossible to fathom as having even a single shred of innocence; it can only be chalked up to sinister motives. If I am to care much at all about Briony in the last third, I have to have one shred of sympathy for her by the conclusion of the first third. The film could have and needed to take more dramatic license.
These are mistakes that I did not expect Wright to make. Is this thudding clumsiness the handiwork of the same person who so ably directed the rest of the film?
What I ask for, could be accomplished almost entirely through a re-edit of the first third of the film.
I would rather that Wright present the Robbie/Cee thread of events, as they experienced them, before we take time to revisit them through Briony's eyes. Permit the audience to make an emotional investment in the small and intimate; allow us to root for the couple's success. Only then bring Briony's mild misinterpretations into play. Create narrative and emotional momentum before you break it. Spring Briony's betrayals of Robbie on us in a more fully formed context. (Briony betrayed Robbie at least twice. Intruding on the "wrong note," intended for Cee, was the mouse trap. Accusing Robbie of raping Lola was the bear trap. Considerable dramatic momentum was lost between these two story beats, because of a failure to more boldly reinterpret the setup, in the first part of the book, for the visual medium of film.)
Otherwise, one way to make Briony's misinterpretations more effective as the first representation of critical events in the film, would be for Wright to present them as being much more "over imagined," far more grotesque than and out-of-whack with a more balanced and informed view of the same. The Robbie/Cee thread would still be sorely under served, but the problem of Briony's state of mind might begin to act as a more adequate dramatic point of focus.
The dramatic failures of the first third, also weakens the poignance of the final third.
A much older Briony remembers past events with clarity, depth and more objectivity. But then she spins a fictional final chapter to her story of Robbie/Cee, in her final work as a celebrated author. She thinks it an atonement, when atonement is no longer possible. Briony's book becomes an empty act of selfish commerce, not anything noble, despite what she confesses to be the truth and her motives during the taping of the interview (featuring English Patient director Anthony Minghella as Briony's interviewer).
Briony's imagination simply continues to overpower her. She is still out of synch with reality, even at that late stage of her life.
...
These nits of mine might not matter much to others. I still hope people will go to see this film.
I hope that more people will also be moved enough to read McEwan's book, if they haven't already.