| 100 |
Newsweek
David Ansen
No two-hour film could ever capture all the riches of McEwan's masterly novel. But Wright and Hampton's Atonement comes tantalizingly close, while adding sensual delights all its own.
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| 100 |
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Nothing in Joe Wright's screen version of Ian McEwan's dense, internalized 2001 novel of secrets and lies should really work, but damn near everything does. It's some kind of miracle. Written, directed and acted to perfection, Atonement sweeps you up on waves of humor, heartbreak and ravishing romance.
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| 100 |
Variety
Derek Elley
Rarely has a book sprung so vividly to life, but also worked so enthrallingly in pure movie terms, as with Atonement, Brit helmer Joe Wright’s smart, dazzlingly upholstered adaptation of Ian McEwan’s celebrated 2001 novel.
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| 100 |
Empire
Helen O'Hara
Gorgeous cinematography, a lilting score and near-faultless performances, under Wright’s assured direction, make this the first contender for next year’s Best Picture Oscar.
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| 100 |
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
Nothing comes easily in Atonement, especially its ending, which, both happy and tragic, is as wrenching as it is genuinely satisfying. How fitting, somehow, that a novel so devoted to the precision and passionate love of language be captured in a film that is simply too exquisite for words.
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| 100 |
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
A singular achievement -- romantic, sensuous, intelligent and finally shattering in its sweep and thematic complexity.
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| 100 |
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
Atonement is that rare combo: a good movie based on a good book.
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| 100 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
This is one of the year's best films, a certain best picture nominee.
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| 100 |
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
What might seem like showing off in another movie is dazzling storytelling here, packing in an hour's worth of human misery.
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| 100 |
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
This is one of the few adaptations that gives a splendid novel the film it deserves.
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| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
An unforgettable examination of a host of dark impulses.
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| 100 |
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
The result is a film that has "Masterpiece Theatre" production values but not an ounce of dust upon it.
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| 100 |
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Through unexpected and cathartic twists, this movie leaves you with atonement and redemption.
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| 100 |
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle
The interpretation is so painstaking and moving that almost every moment delivers a shuddering jolt to the head and the heart.
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| 91 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
The generous, sharp performances, especially Garai's, deepen the story's emotional impact, as does Wright's assured, frequently astounding direction.
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| 90 |
The Hollywood Reporter
Ray Bennett
With compelling and charismatic performances by Keira Knightley and James McAvoy as the lovers, and a stunning contribution from Romola Garai as their remorseful nemesis, the film goes directly to "The English Patient" territory and might also expect rapturous audiences and major awards.
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| 90 |
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
May not hit every note perfectly, but the picture they've come up with is full-bodied and intelligent.
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| 89 |
Austin Chronicle
Kimberley Jones
It’s not quite as brutalizing as McEwan’s brilliant source novel – it bears too much of a Great Art buff – but it ravishes nonetheless in its grand exploration of the sins of the daughter and a lifetime spent making reparations.
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| 88 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
In the end, Atonement sorts truth from fiction as it delivers a shattering kick to the solar plexus.
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| 88 |
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Atonement is effective at getting under the skin, and some audience members won't like that.
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| 88 |
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
Hampton and Wright have been more than sensible when it comes to Atonement. They’ve responded intuitively to a tale that is half art and half potboiler, like so many stories worth telling.
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| 83 |
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Vanessa Redgrave, as the adult Briony, appears at the very end in a monologue that rounds out the film with heartbreaking force.
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| 75 |
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
It is an amazing story, filled with quiet moments of profundity and more surprises than you could imagine.
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| 75 |
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
The movie never goes as deep as the novel (no movie could), but it's a worthy approximation: a Merchant-Ivory movie that turns in on itself with a lucid and painful sigh.
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| 75 |
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
A handsome film, an earnest film, a film with taste in music and photography and a real sense of intelligence. But too often it feels like an exercise. And even when you're impressed by it, you know you're being played.
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| 75 |
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
In the end -- an ending of such power and narrative originality (in both book and movie) that those who know it ought never breathe a word to those who don't.
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| 75 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
It's an imperfect movie that serves as a perfect reminder of what the movies do best.
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| 75 |
Premiere
Glenn Kenny
The settings are handsome, the cinematography accomplished, the performances first-rate.
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| 75 |
TV Guide
Ken Fox
For the most part, the result is a smashing success, filled with great performances and exquisite production design. But those final moments, in which the true nature of the story is revealed, are an unmitigated disaster.
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| 70 |
Village Voice
Ella Taylor
Wright wouldn't recognize unobtrusive if it tapped him on the nose--he's cross- pollinated the first half of Atonement into an Oscar-buzzy brew of Masterpiece Theatre and "Upstairs, Downstairs," with the wild English countryside tamed into an artfully lit fairy glade, and into just enough of a bodice-ripper to reel in the youth market. And not a bad one at that.
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| 70 |
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
Atonement works reasonably well as a tragic romance, but that sting is dulled. As a book, it was a blow to the head; as a movie, it’s an adaptation of a book.
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| 67 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
The characters are not hugely compelling, the performances never completely grab us, and much of the story, while visually arresting, is dramatically tedious.
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| 63 |
USA Today
Claudia Puig
The movie version feels like a stately, but watered down, episode of "Masterpiece Theatre" fused with "The English Patient."
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| 60 |
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
You have to admire it, when so much of the competition seems inane and slack, but you can’t help wondering, with some impatience, what happened to its heart.
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| 50 |
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
Atonement fails to be anything more than a decorous, heavily decorated and ultimately superficial reading of the book on which it is based.
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| 40 |
Film Threat
Jeff Beresford-Howe
Imagine if the team that made "The English Patient" tried to make the same kind of movie, with even more brave-lads-fighting-the-Jerries porn and this time with Extra Added English country manor porn, and without really good actors, and this movie is what you’d have.
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