Another Classic British Romance

I am in the middle of a big move right now, so I didn’t take any screeners to watch at last night’s planning meeting because I don’t want to risk losing any of them in the shuffle.  I took the advice of the Stranger’s film editor Annie Wagner and decided to head out to see Atonement at the theater.  This isn’t normally what I would consider my type of film.  I’m usually not crazy about period pieces.  The payoff almost never lives up to the investment of time necessary to get into the story.  And, as much as I enjoy looking at Keira Knightly, I just couldn’t get too excited about seeing her in another classic British romance.  Atonement sucked me in surprisingly quick though.  The acting was excellent and I kept finding myself wondering what would happen next.  The pacing of the first hour actually held my interest quite well, but the apex of the film came when Robbie Turner and two other soldiers reconnected with the battalion they had been separated from.  The one long take that follows them as they make their way from one end of the beach to the next is one of the best I have ever seen.  I have a hard time imagining the planning and execution that went into pulling it off and it truly inspired me as a filmmaker.