Product Description

From the award-winning director of Pride and Prejudice comes a stunning, critically acclaimed epic story of love. When a young girl catches her sister in a passionate embrace with a childhood friend, her jealousy drives her to tell a lie that will irrevocably change the course of all their lives forever. Academy Award® nominee Keira Knightley and James McAvoy lead an all-star cast in the film critics are hailing "the year's best picture" (Thelma Adams, US Weekly).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1140 in DVD
• Brand: Universal
• Released on: 2008-03-18
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 130 minutes

Amazon.com
Director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice) gives Ian McEwan’s bestselling novel a sumptuous treatment for the screen that should come to be regarded as one of the defining films of the epic romantic drama. Indeed, everything about this film stems from those three words: there is little here that is not epic, romantic, and dramatic, and Atonement is a film that masterfully expresses the overarching sense of adventure and emotion that such stories are meant to convey. In this instance, the story centers around the love story of highborn Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) and housekeeper’s son Robbie Turner (James McAvoy, in a star-making turn), in England shortly before World War II. Despite their class differences, they are powerfully attracted to each other, and just as their relationship begins Robbie is tragically forced away due to false accusations from Cecilia’s younger sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan). She has a crush on Robbie, too, and after reading a private letter he sent to Cecilia, and then witnessing the first expression of their mutual love but mistaking it for mistreatment, her resentment grows until it leads to her telling the lie that will send Robbie away. Soon World War II breaks out; Robbie enlists and is posted to France, Cecilia is a nurse in London, and Briony, now age 18 and aware of what she has done, tries to atone for her actions--but none of them will be able to get back what they have lost. Knightley and McAvoy are perfectly cast as the young star crossed lovers, and the young Ronan is particularly impressive, but it’s clear that the real star of this film is the director. Wright allows Atonement to revel in every moment of its story and each scene is compelling in its own way, but that now famous extended shot with Robbie on the beach at Dunkirk--filmed in one take and sure to be considered one of the great long tracking shots in film history--is the most memorable moment in this remarkable film. Atonement is an excellent example of what can happen when a great book meets great filmmaking. This is one that is not to be missed. --Daniel Vancini

Stills from Atonement (click for larger image).

Customer Reviews

Boring and Depressing, Liked the twist at the end
This is a movie about how not to be in life. In fact the supporting character who reeks havoc in the movie, Briony, has got to be one of my least favorite people of all time.

That being said, this is a beautiful looking movie and started out as something I liked. As time goes on it degrades into something dark and depressing; which war often is. It is an interesting look into that era.

I watched this at a girls' movie night and the general consensus was that it was pretty boring. We decided it must be the surprise ending that got it all of the awards, that and the beautiful settings in the beginning of the movie. The ending convinced me that Briony is the most selfish, evil (yet not evil) character ever. That and in general the movie was just depressing.

I am glad I saw it, I would never watch it again.

Hiss!! Boo!! Laughably Overrated & Boring Film
Wow, if Atonement is the "Best Picture" of 2007, then Hollywood was really scraping the bottom of the barrel for candidates. After hearing about all of the accolades received by "Atonement", my wife and I decided to rent this film and give it a shot. After all, anything voted "Best Picture" has got to be pretty decent. Right? Um, yeah. I guess we were wrong. I have now completely lost all respect and regard for some of these so-called "professional movie critics". Atonement is painfully slow-moving, with dull characters and a complete lack of the dramatic. By the time we reached the mid-way point, this movie had lost me completely and I found myself wishing that it would just end already.

Some people out there would surely accuse me of needing to be spoon-fed nothing but action, violence, and gore. Nonsense. Try watching the movie "Amadeus", which is one of my favorite movies of all time and achieves a wonderfully dramatic and moving storyline without the use of such bells and whistles. Truly a masterpiece of filmmaking and storytelling. None of this is to be found in "Atonement", which is simply 130 minutes of crust. There is a fine line between character/story development, and simply nothing happening outside of boring and pointless dialogue. Atonement falls into the latter of the two categories.

I'm sorry, but adding a WWII theme and dragging the story out to a 2+ hour run time does not simply result in an "epic" film, nor does it put the film into the same category as "Titanic", or even a "Pearl Harbor". Clearly the makers of Atonement were shooting for this type of result (Historic theme + Love = great movie) but this film fails on so many fronts, and is laughably overrated.

Reasonably well done
Because I really enjoyed the book I have put off seeing the movie for some time, concerned that the movie would only disappoint, as is so often the case with the book-to-movie transition. And now that I've seen the movie I don't think it disappointed, but as is also the often the case in the book-to-movie transition, there was so much great material from the book that just couldn't adapt to the silver screen.

Having said that, there were some great redeeming qualities to the movie. The acting was superb. The scenery of England was beautiful. The re-creations of the scenes of the English military's evacuation from Dunkirk were outstanding. The storyline of the movie was true to the book, accounting for the major scenes that develop the story. The screenplay and the director were certainly successful in developing the circumstances of juvenile misunderstanding that led to heartbreak, misplaced justice, elusive love and passion, and ultimately lost life and a lifetime of regret.

As with the book, this movie does not convey joyous occasions, but rather some hard-learned lessons about life for a young girl that will haunt her forever. Ones for which she will never be able to truly atone, but only pray for forgiveness.