Oscar Cleanup: "Atonement" Review - Written by John Massie

This review was originally posted on 10 Novermber, 2007 and was written in the heat of the moment as soon as I returned from the cinema. Although I can now discuss this film without swearing my feelings haven't changed.

This film, starring Keira Knightly and James McAvoy and directed by Pride and Prejudice director Joe Wright, will almost certainly be nominated for and perhaps even win several Oscars although I honestly don't think it stands a chance outside Actress and Supporting Actress. And if I watch the Oscar ceremony, and I might because Jon Stewart is hosting, I will boo everytime this film is mentioned. Why? I'll get to that in a minute.

At this point I should describe the plot. Little sister and big sister(Knightly) both fancy the gardener(McAvoy). Little sister lies to keep big sister from having him. Jump forward five years to WWII.

Now, thats not a very good plot description. Partly to avoid spoilers, and partly because I ended up hating the film. Why? I'll get to that in a minute.

The first half of the film, set in 1935, is a very effective set up. The music is a bit overbearing and the film tries a bit too hard to have an iconic image, but I enjoyed it and definantly wanted to see how the various plot strands get resolved in 1940.

The second half, set mostly in 1940, is ok but it begins to wander and although its kinda building to something it goes for the long drawn out way to get there. But still at this point a good ending will still have had me leaving the theatre happy.

And then we get to the ending which is one of the stupidest fucking endings ever.

(spoilers from this point onwards although you can skip to the final paragraph if you want)

You see, it turns out after we've had the somewhat lame attempt at reconciliation between sisters, we cut to today where Little Sister is an Author whose latest book is called 'Atonement'. And it turns out everything up until this point was actually the book she had written. And in reality McAvoy died in France and never made it back home. And Big Sister died in the bombings and Little sister never saw her again. So the kinda lame confrontation we just saw was entirely fictional.

But thats not the worst part. Little Sister then acts like because she wrote them a happy ending in her book she had somehow atoned for her sins and the music gets all sad yet uplifting and we're supposed to fucking pity her and forgive her. Fuck that. That was the moment that I actually began hating the the character. And hating the film. Then we cut to Kinightly and McAvoy dancing on the beach all happy. The end. FUCK THAT.

Now, I appreciate the ending as a post modern twist on the usual happy endings but it gave us the fucking happy ending anyway. If they'd both died and we never had the bullshit old lady stuff, it would work as a tradgey and that would have been pretty fucking good. But no, the film fucking belives that the fucking bitch atoned for her sins with the crappy book 60 years later that fuck all people would actually read or care about and treats it like a happy ending. FUCK THAT. FUCK THE OLD LADY. FUCK HER BOOK. FUCK THIS FILM.

Also the book the film was based on was written by a man so the old lady isn't real. This doesn't change my feelings, but just so you know I'm not threatening a real old lady.

(Spoilers end)

I'm going to guess most people won't agree with my sentiments that I expressed in the Spoiler paragraphs. They'll probably enjoy the film and and have no idea why I'm so furious about the ending. And I can accept that. I'm not even 100% sure why it infuriated me so much. I just hated it and left the theatre in a really bad mood. Looking back everything up until a point was really good and thats coming from a guy who is not into the whole 'Historical Romance' genre. And its just a shame the ending is so rediciously fucking awful.