Atonement, the Movie

Atonement

The premise of this movie (book) is interesting -- a young girl makes a mistake that ruins the lives of her sister and her sister's boyfriend. Once the mistake was made, it could not be undone. She had to live all her life knowing of the tragic effects of her mistake. We all make mistakes, and we have to live with them -- "to err is human". It is almost as if we are foreordained to make mistakes that cause us pain for all of our lives. It seems to me that the biggest problem is having to live with the knowledge of causing pain for others, and that was her mistake. In the end, desperately seeking atonement, she wrote a book about her life experience, but with a fictional happy ending. The movie was sad; it was not a happy experience at all, and I am not sure that I would recommend it.

When I went to see this movie, I had not read the book, nor had I read any reviews of the movie. I knew only that it was a love story set during World War II, and that it was getting great reviews. After a few minutes of the movie, I found that I was getting restless. It was dragging. As it continued, the pace continued to be slow, and I found that I was becoming bored with the movie and impatient. Throughout the movie, I was troubled by the slow pace and drifting nature of the movie. Later, I read this New York Times review of the movie, and I agreed with it in general.

Atonement