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Nominated for seven Academy Awards and garlanded with praise from critics worldwide, Atonement is an exceptional movie. Based on the book by Ian McEwan it’s an epic, haunting and tragic love story set during the Second World War, and it features not just great writing but some great performances too.
The Guardian looked like it’d run out of superlatives: its review says the movie is lavish, spectacular, gobsmacking, extraordinary, clever and compassionate, “a film which aims at big ideas, and it treats us like grownups”.
- Watch Atonement on Prime Video
Is Atonement worth streaming?
Definitely. It’s a film that had the critics absolutely enraptured, with the legendary Roger Ebert saying that it “begins on joyous gossamer wings, and descends into an abyss of tragedy and loss”. Without giving the plot away it’s based on a misunderstanding and a lie told by a teenage girl, and that lie has terrible effects not just on her, but on others too. The lie, Ebert says, “destroys all possibility of happiness in three lives, including her own… How many films have we seen that fascinate in every moment and then, in the last moments, pose a question about all that has gone before, one that forces us to think deeply about what betrayal and atonement might really entail?”
The wartime setting means that the movie delivers some visceral scenes, as NPR reports: “Joe Wright directs Atonement with an eye to framing each performance with spectacularly vivid images, including a genuinely breathtaking tracking shot on the bloody, wreckage-strewn beach at Dunkirk.” And the San Jose Mercury News said that “in its first 45 minutes, Atonement achieves a kind of perfection rare even for big Oscar-bait movies. Every facet of the filmmaking is the equal of any picture released this year. The rest of the movie isn’t so bad.”
Empire gave the film the full five stars – it’s “complex, delicate and devastating” and features “gorgeous cinematography, a lilting score and near-faultless performances” – while the New York Times praised it as “a sweeping, tear-jerking love story”. As novelist Ian McEwan told the newspaper: “it’s not often the case that British movies are so good-looking. They usually have a kind of documentary feel. But this one has stunning landscapes and gorgeous camerawork.”
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