The Frame

I wish I could experience this film without having read the book–a sentiment I often feel when watching adapations; I want to experience both the book and the film as my first time with the story, because whichever I experience first taints the other. That’s actually why I usually watch the films first and then read the book–that way there’s a better chance the book will add to the experience rather than the film taking away from it. With that intro, it sounds like I’m going to blast the film. I’m really not. It’s a very well-made, gorgeous-looking, extremely faithful adaptation. There are lots of things it does very well: both girls who play Briony are wonderful (in fact, it’s a bit of a shame that Saoirse Ronan is getting all the attention; she’s great, of course, but so is Ramola Garai, who plays Briony at age 18), Knightley and McAvoy hold their own as the thwarted lovers, and cinematography is pretty (though a little softer than I prefer), and the typewriter-overlaid-music is a perfect touch. I can’t fault the adaptation on faithfulness at all, which I think is part of my problem. If you like faithful adaptations, you won’t be disappointed; personally I find them a bit sterile. But people I’ve talked to who saw the movie without having read the book didn’t feel the film was sterile, so it may just be me. The war scenes also weren’t done as powerfully as I would’ve liked (the exception being the virtuoso steadicam shot at Dunkirk), and the ending could’ve been done more cinematically and less literarily. These are perhaps minor details, but they were enough to distract me and keep me from giving the film the unqualified praise I wanted to give.
Well Above Average