I do agree with you about the Briony character. I was underwhelmed by the actor who played her in the second part (not helped by the great performance in the first part of the film), but as you rightly said, her character is under-developed. It is a bit of a case of, who is this film about? Because it is called Atonement (and is essentially about Briony atoning for what she has done) one would conclude that it should be exclusively Briony’s story. I don’t know though - the audience I feel is made to dislike her character, almost from the outset, and inevitably one gets swept up in the romance between Robbie and Celia - which isn’t a bad thing.

As for the end - it is tricksy, and a lot of reviews I have read have said similar to you - they’re not convinced by it. It works much better in the book - the whole conceit is better executed. The majority of the book is written in an overly literary manner (unusual for McEwan) and you come to realise that the reason for this is because it is actually (supposed to be) written by Briony, the act of which seems to cement her all the more in the story because it is her narrative.

Though there is something of the ‘and I woke up and realised it was all a dream’ about the ending, there was still something powerful about the idea that we can often remember things wrong (either accidentally or deliberately) to make the pain of past events make more sense or just be less painful. The idea that the act of remembrance can sometimes be more powerful than actual events - that Robbie and Celia’s love wasn’t in vain, but in some small way was kept alive in Briony - I liked that idea. I know that seems somewhat sentimental, but I guess I am a bit of a sentimental fool. I don’t think anyone would have left that cinema satisified if the story had concluded solely with their deaths and there was nothing hopeful to come out of it. My novel has a brutally tragic ending, and I have only come to realise recently that if you don’t offer something hopeful at the end, then there is nothing to be learnt or taken away from it for the audience point of view.

As for the idea of manipulation - well, don’t all films do this? Isn’t a film just manipulated reality - all the boring bits cut out and the rare drama suffusing everything. In every film there is the soundtrack cranking up the emotion, the editing of scenes wringing every last bit of drama from the scenario, people saying things that we would never get the chance to in real life. I think the war scenes were necessary to the story, because (I felt) they were authentic, that they were possible if the characters were actually alive. They did add weight to the story, and also lifted it from being just another hundrum love story (which is what Titanic tried to do but rather miserably failed by its poor script).

Any way - it was really interesting to read your comments. You were the first person I have come across who didn’t like it. Thanks for explaining why!

As for my review, I imagine people who’ve read the book are going to have a very different view of the film than people who haven’t. You can fill in the gaps of the narrative and I can’t. I do think a film should be judged on its own merits though.

In regards to the WWII scenes, I found them to be moving (the field with the dead school girls comes to mind), but I felt the film was just capitalizing on emotions the audience already has about the war. Of course, people are going to have strong reactions to seeing dead and wounded soldiers and children – to me, the director was just using that horrible imagery to manipulate the audience into tears and add weight to his story. I just resent being manipulated in that way [or at least, I see this as manipulation]. It’s like the old cliché from writer’s workshops – did the writer earn this reaction from the audience?

I’ve been thinking about the film a bit more and what possible meaning it could have. It’s clear that the notion of atonement is at its heart. But in this story, who must atone? That is obviously Briony.

[SPOILERS!]

While the first terrific half of the movie involves Briony in the perfect way, in the second half of the film Briony is an after-thought. For this story to have any real meaning at all, it is Briony’s story that needs to be at the center. She is the one who made the fateful decision to lie, which caused a horrible chain reaction. She needs to atone. Yet she’s really just over-shadowed by Keira Knightley’s tragedy upon tragedy. Briony as a grown-up character is horribly underdeveloped. She almost seems like she’s had a lobotomy, the way she just stares off into space like a zombie. Did she really have any true remorse for what she’d done? It doesn’t seem like she’s even capable of understanding it.

Then at the very end, we are presented with the elderly version of Briony, her novel about Cecilia and Robbie, etc., and the “moral of the story” is virtually tacked on. I don’t know how this is handled in the book, but in the film it’s laughable. This is like a trick one of my first-year writing students would pull. It was just so shocking when this happened in the film – I was aghast.

Anyway, that’s my view of it. I know I’m in the minority. I was determined to love this movie, so I’m not taking any pleasure in picking it apart!

I was also interested that you found the depiction of the second world war sappy and melodramatic. I found it the exact opposite. I thought there was a brutal truth in the way that it was depicted that has been missing in a lot of films that deal with the second world war. If anything I felt a great pang of sadness at the sheer waste of human life, a feeling I have never really connected with this part of or from my grandparents. What I felt was refreshing that this was the first movie for a long time that wasn’t from an American point of view - especially considering that the American involvement in Europe itself was minimal.

As for a transcendental truth, I was shocked you could think the film was meaningless. The themes (for me) were the awful waste of life that is forgotten in war, the forgotten narratives of people whose names are not included on epitaphs, how history forgets the little people, and the fact that love is an extremely precious thing and that one ought to sacrifice everything to be with the one they love. I haven’t seen such a heart renderingly romantic film for such a long time… we talked about the film incessantly when we left the cinema, and felt how important it is to not let life get in the way of love.

As for the narrative tricks - well, I for one appreciated them. It made the denouement all the more crushing. I think it is perhaps better constructed in the novel, but I think the film was brave in that respect. Rather that than watch a film with a run of the mill narrative from beginning to end.

Anyway - I suppose these are differences of opinion. I thought perhaps because of your writerly credentials you may have loved this film!