Atonement (Matt)

I did not really know what to expect going into this film. My only exposure to the movie up to the point when I watched it was the trailer. As far as the story was concerned however, I was clueless. I had decided that this was going to be a love story with a little bit of action thrown in for the benefit of the dudes who were dragged by a significant other into the film against their wishes. I dismissed it as cliche and had this movie not been this week's choice, I would never have seen it.

I now realize that I should not be so quick to judge. This movie was excellent.

The acting I felt was great. I try to judge acting by asking myself if at any time realized I was watching people pretend to be the characters instead of watching the characters in a story and the answer to that question was a big no. I was never taken out of the story. I was pulling for the couple to succeed. I shared in their anger at the younger sister who's lie destroyed their lives. My emotions ran all over the place with this movie, and I think that is a pretty solid mark of a good movie.

There were a few places however where I found myself struggling to keep up with what was going on. The movie likes to throw in flashbacks without warning, and this can cause the viewer to get confused as to what they are watching. I found myself more than once trying to decide if what I was watching happened in the past or was in the future.

There were some very long shots in this movie, one in particular occurs when Robbie arrives at the sea. I wish I had timed the scene, it felt like it lasted 10 minutes. It had a great effect also, making the scene into one long shot increased uneasiness and helped me to experience the feeling of loss that the character was going through.

So yeah, my initial impressions were wrong. I now know better than to judge a movie by its trailer. I'll give this movie 8 sets of runaway twins out of 10.

~Matt