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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: Slap me with it, big shot
Comment: Keira Knightley and the bloke from Shameless star in this sing-along classic. Comparisons with
Grease are this time justified.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Almost Great
Comment: Joe Wright's adaptation of Ian McEwan's beautiful novel is a passionately romantic account of how
childhood feelings, betrayals and misunderstandings lead to the collapse of adult relationships. It
is a film which has all many of the hallmarks of classic British movies; a hot summer in a country
mansion; the ravages of war and class tension.

It is a lavishly directed film; the
choice of shots superb. The close ups of Briony as she delivers her evidence without pause or
hesitation; the views of the evacuation of Dunkirk shot in a beautiful warm summer's glow allowing
the whole scenario a surrealsitic quality. The pace of the film and the changes in tempo are
impressive. The music which is sentimental and romantic underscores the irony of the failures of
love which the film reveals.

I enjoyed the quality of the acting this work,
particularly in the claustrophobic country-house scenes at the start. The brevity of the adaptation
did mean that some characters did feel rather lightweight and I missed the characterisation that the
novel was able to develop.

The last scenes of the film do however leave a feeling of
dissatisfaction; as an audience we have been asked to accept a premise only for it to be swept away-
it's not that the ending doesn't work only that it makes you question the validity of all you have
seen before.
The sense of doubt and uncertainty is annoying because this is a fine film .

Customer Rating:

Summary: McEwen's elemental tale epically and beautifully realised
Comment: If you're looking for a simple love story, beautifully rendered on an epic scale, then you will
surely not be dissapointed after watching this. However, although the original novel has been
regenerated here into a visually lush cinematic drama, I feel that to really experience it, to
really 'get it', you will likely need to read the book as well.

Ian McEwen, the
novel's author, isn't into 'simple love stories'. He deals with complex, fundamental themes, above
all with human nature and its relationship to society and the natural world. Are we able to
rationally direct our own lives, to write our own script? Or is the life of the individual forever
doomed to be in the grip of more elemental forces beyond its control - the primal, animal forces
within and the capricious, yet epic, forces without?

Customer Rating:

Summary: Just thought whatever
Comment: This film is boring, stupid and after seeing a film that was amazing the day before just thought
whatever. Maybe unfair to have watched this after seeing another FAB film the day before, but oh
well? stupid ending. didnt cry or anything as didnt give a damn! keira was rubbish in this and not
convincing enough love story.... come on!

Customer Rating:

Summary: Is it me...?
Comment: I've watched the movie and read the reviews and my overpowering take out is something no one else
seems to have felt ...that Bryony made a mistake.
An overactive imagination, a lonely child
who sees plots and conspiracies everywhere, a desire to play detective and make sense of things just
beyond her ken, a frustrated sense of authority; these are the things that brought her to make her
judgement, surely. Nothing else makes any sense. If she knew it was a lie, why did she do it? There
is woefully inadequate plot and/or character driven motivation for her behaviour to be fuelled by
malice. There's a vague case for a woman scorned- she was adolescently in love with Robbie - but
that's simply not born through in any other aspect of her behaviour, then or later. She doesn't
exhibit any of the viciousness that would be necessary to do this dreadful betrayal. Because of that
- it seeming to be a tragic error rather than a malevolent act - the rest of the film was absolutely
illogical. It kept moving in bits. Characters behaved in a certain way in the first chunk - Cecilia
spoilt,shallow and frankly pretty useless, Bryony naively mistaken but with some potential, - and
totally differently in the next chunk - Cecilia saintly, capable, stalwart and suddenly happy to
live in a slum, Bryony racked with guilt for her evil behaviour and being utterly unresourceful in
every aspect of her life.
Robbie then wanders round France managing to completely avoid all
aspects of war bar arriving late for a bizarre mass murder of identical adolescent girls. We then
get a bit of Apocolype Now meets Brief Encounter at Dunkirk and then we're on the home stretch for
the 'who cares' ending of pure fantasy. A clumsy, lumpen mess of a film that must have astounded the
assorted cast and crew when it suddenly garnered every award going. Then again, look at
Titanic.....

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