Anybody out there seen Atonement? (SPOILERS)

[mvansand76]

I would like to discuss it here.

It has touched me in a way no movie has since Brokeback!

[Penthesilea]

I was going to ask the same  .
I haven't seen it yet, but plan to do so tomorrow evening. It was highly recommended to me.
I'll report back after seeing it.

[belbbmfan]

I have to wait until January 9th when it's released over here. 

But I've bought the book to keep me happy until then. I wonder which will be best: the book or the movie? I love Ian McEwan. I've read Saturday and I'm now reading On Chesil Beach.

This film is on my must-see list.

I'd like to hear your thoughts.

[mvansand76]

Hey both of you!

There's a huge difference of opinion over whether the book is better than the movie or the other way around. I saw the movie before I finished the book (I am only on page 50 in the book). According to my colleague, who I saw the movie with, the ending is slightly different than the book's ending... and he likes the book as much as he likes the movie. In one way it's very faithful to the book and in other ways it takes different roads...

I love that the questions the ending raises reminds me of the questions that BBM raised. What do we believe really happened?

[Penthesilea]

***Spoiler alert for my whole post***

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It didn't work out to see it Friday as was planned, but I saw it yesterday evening.
I haven't read the book (yet?), so I can't say anything comparing the two.


I think it was a really good movie. The twist towards the end came as total surprise. I was like wtf? What's happening now? Loved it.

But in the end, I wasn't very touched by the movie or the ending. But many people in the theatre were deeply effected. There were some people crying or at least sniffing hardly in effort to control their emotions.

I love that the questions the ending raises reminds me of the questions that BBM raised. What do we believe really happened?

For me, there was no doubt that the author (old Brainy) told the truth. That's what's happened. They both had died.

Looking forward to your opinion  .

[mvansand76]

Hey!

Well, the movie obviously didn't have the effect on me that BBM had, because I haven't really been thinking about the movie the past week. BUT it did really affect me, and I too was crying during the ending. It was much more melodrama than BBM because I never really cried during the ending of BBM, which I don't find surprising, because it gave me an entirely different feeling of stupor and I'm still thinking about that now. That kind of ending is more effective in the end.







SPOILER




I don't know, maybe this is what Annie was talking about with the ending of BBM and if Jack's death was an accident or not, and what it says about you when you believe that he was killed. I think Cee and Robby were both killed. I don't think that talk they had ever happened. What do you think?

Mel

[Penthesilea]

***Spoilers***

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SPOILER


I don't know, maybe this is what Annie was talking about with the ending of BBM and if Jack's death was an accident or not, and what it says about you when you believe that he was killed. I think Cee and Robby were both killed. I don't think that talk they had ever happened. What do you think?

Mel

Same here. That talk never happened imo, Cee and Robby never met again after she hopped on the bus. But Robby had more than the one postcard of the cottage, he had a whole bundle of letters. Therefore I'm sure they at least had restored their relationship and wrote each other regularly.

[Fran]

I thought Atonement was good, but I wasn't swept away, and I wanted to be.  I wanted this to be a movie that I'd want to see multiple times.  Maybe my expectations were too high. (Darn BBM.  It's going to be a hard movie to top.)  I haven't read the book, so maybe that would have made a difference.  I mean, there are people over at IMDb who absolutely love this movie, and it did win two Golden Globes....

I admit that it does have awesome cinematography, especially in the first part of the movie.  The Dunkirk scene is amazing; the camera just keeps on panning.  I probably could have done without seeing the bodies of the dead schoolgirls and the poor horses, but war isn't supposed to be pretty.  Keira Knightley was stunning -- I loved her in the green dress -- and Saoirse Ronan was impressive, too.  (Can't wait to see her in The Lovely Bones.)  The actress who played 18-year-old Briony seemed too old, IMO.

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My favorite scene had to be when Briony walked into the dining room with the letter from the twins, and Cecilia, thinking it's the letter from Robbie, says, "Let me have it" -- or words to that effect.  If looks could kill, Briony would be dead. 

I'm wondering why Briony was so upset by the fountain scene, especially since Robbie was trying to look away and he didn't do anything sexual to Cee.  Maybe Briony had some schoolgirl crush on Robbie and was jealous that he was paying attention to her sister and not to her.  Too bad Robbie and Cee didn't lock the library door....

I'd have thought that Briony would have admitted her lie a lot earlier -- at least to her parents -- because once she realized that her lie was breaking up her very own family.

I cry rather easily at movies, so I came prepared with kleenex, which I didn't need.  Don't get me wrong, the movie is good, perhaps even very good, but I was hoping for great.

Maybe I should read the book. 

[MaineWriter]

Hi everyone,

I went and saw Atonement today. I have the book (I received it for Christmas) but haven't read it yet, so I can't compare them. But my impression...

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I think the whole middle of the movie....from the time it says "Four years later, northern France" was all Briony's imagination. And that really makes me wonder how much, if any of it, was true. For example, Chrissi, you note that Robbie had a stack of letters. But did he? Did Cecelia and Robbie really reconnect in London? I do think Cecelia and Robbie both died, but everything else...how much is true?

Answering another question: Briony had a crush on Robbie and had had, for years. Seeing her sister with him at the fountain, with her sister dripping wet, she realized they were in love--and she didn't want them to be in love. She wanted Robbie to love her (even though that was entirely unrealistic).

I even wonder if Briony ever studied nursing.

Leslie

[Lynne]

Mark (jpwagoneer) and I saw ATONEMENT down in San Diego...I hope he posts about his impressions.  I liked it very much was moved by it and taken by surprise by the ending.  But no obsession here either.

From the accounts I've read of Dunkirk, this was done very realistically.  The one thing that was left out that I think makes Dunkirk remarkable is the participation of ordinary Britons in evacuating the troops:

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk):

"...This lull in the action gave the British a few days to evacuate by sea. Winston Churchill ordered any ship or boat available, large or small, to pick up the stranded soldiers, and 338,226 men (including 120,000 French soldiers) were evacuated - the miracle of Dunkirk, as Winston Churchill called it. It took over 900 vessels to evacuate the Allied forces. More than 40,000 vehicles as well as massive amounts of other military equipment and supplies were left behind; their value being less than that of trained fighting men. The British evacuation of Dunkirk through the English Channel was codenamed Operation Dynamo."

It's my understanding that many, many of the 900 vessels were manned by British civilians, even (especially?) women, small fishing vessels, pleasure crafts, sailboats, etc...who ferried the soldiers from the Dunkirk coast out to larger ships, which then dropped them off and made return trips to pick up the next load.

****SPOILERS****

I would like to see it at least one more time, though, to work out in my own mind what actually happened and what were Briony's revisions.  After viewing number one, I would like to watch it with the idea that everything from Briony's POV is suspect to her own (mis)interpretation.

I was left with the impression that the letters to Robbie during the war were real, but that he did not make it out of Dunkirk alive.  I thought that it was Briony's visit to her sister and her 'memory' of their reunion and Robbie being alive that was solely in her imagination - what she wanted to do but was too cowardly, embellished with her fantasy that her betrayal could somehow be undone by Robbie coming home from the war alive.

Did she find atonement by rewriting the story they should have had late in her life?  That was our question leaving the theatre and I believe our consensus was 'Not likely.'