AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

**Warning: The following is littered with spoilers. It is recommended that you do not read unless you have seen the film**

I would first like to mention that I have not read, nor do not intend on reading the novel Atonement by Ian McEwan My notes here are specific to the film directed by Joe Wright with screenplay written by Christopher Hampton.

That said. I would like to congratulate Messers Wright and Hampton on a wonderful first act, or first 70 minutes or so. All scenes that take place in 1935 are beautiful and the story and is well crafted with excellent time jumps and withholding of information until just the right moment. It was excellent filmmaking.

Although to say that the beginning of the film does not factor into my issues would not be fair. It is because of how well as the first 70 minutes is crafted that I expected much better through the rest of my viewing experience. It makes the ending so much worse for that reason.

But before we get to the ending, I would like to say that War is Hell. A simple fact, simply stated, and should not take another 20-30 minutes to illustrate. This is a love story, not a war movie. The war scenes were excellent in and of themselves, but the length and depth was not that necessary. There was more saying “war is hell” then saying the things that needed to be said at this point in the film: “The world is not right, not fair, and this is all the result of that stupid fucking girl who lied and never corrected herself through out the entire trial. Fuck her.”

There are moments of that, like coming across the field scattered with dead little girls. That was stunning. All the beach stuff, that amazing long single shot through all the madness? Stunning work. Not necessary. I forget why I care about him. And so I stop caring about him.

Teenage Briony is good. She’s starting to learn, but the metaphors are getting too poetic. She needs to know exactly what she did. Instead of the wounded French soldier’s skull opening up and her seeing his brain as he dies. She should have unbandaged his heart and seeing it stop beating in front of her face. That is what she deserved. That would have been enough to get her to behave appropriately in the end.

The end. This is how it should have gone down: The scene in the kitchen 1939 – that is a great and needed scene. Cut to the window, the lovers kissing, pan down to teenage Briony and then this: VO of interviewer: “But that never happened did it?”
Vanessa Redgrave/Briony: No. No it didn’t. I--- I---- I’m sorry can I be excused for a moment.

She goes and collects herself.

You see with this kind of structure you still care. The movie never lies to you. In the way that it currently plays out she doesn’t tell you that that scene never happened. For one, the jump to modern time is waaaay abrupt. Startling even. And all we know is that she wrote a book about it. Her last book because she’s dying. Well boo fucking hoo you’re dying. Those people you tell us so callously about also died. And they died never having seen each other again, and THEN you have the fucking audacity to tell us that they never had the scene in the kitchen? They didn’t? That’s the only think that kept us going you fucking mangy twat! You so fucking magnanimously “give them that scene that the never had in real life” and then don’t have the decency to follow that statement with something like: “Because I fucking took it from them. It’s because of me and my pettiness and my fear that I stole that love from their lives. I’ve never been able to love in my life, perhaps as a result of my actions. I wrote the book to tell their story, to try and let them life on. A life they might not have happened was it not for my 13 year old jealousy.” Something like that would have been nice.

A note to the filmmakers: There is an old adage about filmmaker and that is, don’t write a prison movie if you have never been to prison. Well I say to you don’t write a love story if you have never been in love. And you may claim that you have and how dare I make such a statement, I say that your work tells me other wise. And as we all know, a man’s work says more about him than his mouth can ever tell you.

Oh, and a final note. When Vanessa Redgrave says “I got first hand accounts from people for the scenes that I was not present for”? Fuck you. That’s fucking first time screenwriting/filmmaking shit. Unless that was a note from a very important studio boss that demanded it be in there, it’s useless. She already claimed she was writing fiction. I give you the previously mentioned kitchen scene. It’s not important that she clarify the details. We don’t care. We don’t care in this case because the movie has already made us not care, and on the off chance that we do care by then, we certainly don’t care if she clarifies it because we already know she’s a liar!! No, we don’t care because who fucking gives a shit. Her book isn’t the movie we’re watching. Her book was in the movie we’re watching. The movie is what happened. She’s just a character in it. Fuck her. Fuck you lady. For what you did, and for not coming clean until you’re fucking dying. Fuck you.

The fact that this movie gets so much acceptance tells me that the audience is 1) too forgiving of mediocrity 2) too fucking self centered to see that such a travesty has even occurred and 3) too suggestible to allow themselves to think this a love story. This is a grand tragedy, and contemporary Briony should be hanged by her heart until it’s blood awaken the long lost lovers.

And PS: Fuck you for putting them on the beach at the very end. That never happened. They fucking died you assholes. Tell the truth.

PPS: Messers Wright and Hampton I call you out. You must Atone!!!!