I watched Atonement on DVD for the first time last week. I was curious to see why there was so much fuss and Oscar buzz about a British period piece set around the second world war. I also had a local interest as the much-heralded, one take scene of the beach at Dunkirk was filmed in Redcar just down the road from where I live.

The film directed by Joe Wright is based on the book by Ian McEwan and displays its literary heritage from the start. It is a strange film in terms of structure and themes. The UK film magazine Empire described it as a manor house mystery followed by war story and a kitchen sink drama ended by a confessional piece to camera. I have to agree mostly and it does feel a little disjointed. To its credit, the acting all round is superb - especially Keira Knightley and James McAvoy - and provides oil for the clunky story structure to slide around on.

The themes of class and forbidden and repressed love are well explored in the opening half of the film. But as you find out from the early moments of the film not all is what it seems. The same scene in the fountain is shown from two different viewpoints to emphasise the differing perceptions of the main protagonists and lead the way to the dramatic and fatal course of action that follows. 

In many ways the standout scene is the Dunkirk beach tracking shot where Robbie is walking around the chaos and carnage but it is almost superfluous. It seems out of place. Its scale is epic and whilst interesting and eye popping it does not add that much to the telling of the story. Maybe it was put there to distract the audience from the loose narrative. It belongs in a different film.

I suppose the only film that I could compare it to would be Cold Mountain. There is a similar story of two fledgling lovers who have never really consummated their love being torn apart by war. Both films are about what might have been and what was. Both films are adaptations of books and I must say that Atonement seems to have had the more difficult birth. Beautiful photography and the depiction of the thirties setting (complete with the sort of accents you would expect from a Noel Coward film of the time) help the film enormously. It is definitely not without its merits.

However, the penultimate act deceives the audience and makes the ending that much more shocking and tragic. I believe it is a fatal flaw that stops it from being a really great film. Whilst it is a clever and a contrived device both in a literary and cinematic sense it frustrated me personally big time. Many reviewers have applauded the ending and see it as a ray of hope in a bleak emotional landscape. I don’t see it that way. The act of atonement itself is not strong enough, sincere enough or romantic enough to satisfy a film audience - well, not this member of that audience. I find the ending more tragic and bleak for all concerned. And the atonement by the girl (now a famous writer) is weak and selfish and all the less sincere for it taking so long to surface. She has given the two ill-fated lovers a future through her last novel, one that they never had in real life. A romantic gesture? But it helps no one, other than to salve her own conscience before she dies. 

I came away from the film feeling short changed in the emotional stakes and unsatisfied. Because of the ending, it did not have the emotional power of say The English Patient and I just felt a little confused and frustrated. Maybe in the literary world such an ending is seen as intelligent and smart but as a film there was a chance for a really powerful ending that went begging. Maybe that’s where too literal an adaptation works against the film narrative.

I will watch it again to see whether I have been too hard on the film and it won’t be a hardship as in many respects it is one of the best British films of this decade.