Atonement - When does it go wide?
 

I can only find when it's going into limited release. Does anyone know when it goes wide?

Jan 4th for my smaller theater in Rochester, NY

Very soon after the Oscar nominations are announced? :)

I'm kind of surprised DC is actually getting this this Friday since DC is notoriousily left off of many studio's "limited release cities"

Where? I'm in D.C. too. Landmark's E Street or Bethesda?

both

I remember seeing it being December 14th. And I hope that's right. I really don't want to wait much longer to see this.

so far so good, 85% at rotten tomatoes

Hopefully this will get more people to read the excellent novel, it's one of my favorites. I didn't fully read any of the reviews (I do that after seeing the movie) but the clips are very encouraging that the adaption is pretty faithful. And even if it strays, I have enough faith in Knightley, McAvoy, and director Wright that it will be done tastefully.

I just have to keep the expectations in check, I'm way too excited about seeing this.

Atonement leads Golden Globes with 7 nominations.
Best Drama, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, and Musical Score

expands today, goes WIDE on the 21st.

is this actually good or just another English Patient? which I would rather eat broken glass than sit through again.

I really liked it a lot but it was different than I was expecting. I went with 2 people, 1 loved it, the other thought it was the worst movie of the year....

Saw this yesterday, thought it was a beautifully made epic with a lush visual style and a devastating coda. James McAvoy is fantastic as the tortured victim of the story, and Joe Wright's directorial flourishes deserve to be acknowledged come Oscar time (the first act and the unbroken take at Dunkirke blew me away). The flaws lie in some of the pacing throughout the middle act, but otherwise it was very impressive, indeed.

Make sure the glass is in very small pieces .... I found this to be a dreary and dull experience and found it difficult to resist bolting from the theater. I will admit that half-way through there is a virtuoso tracking shot that is amazing, and that Vanessa Redgreave finally shows up and breathes some life into the proceedings, but overall tedium wins out.

a dvdrip has leaked online. I really want to see this in theaters though

Funny you should ask that because I just saw it and what I thought was that it is precisely another overrated, ultracontrived, Oscar-bait, boring, pretentious, please-kill-me-now-and-put-me-out-of-my-misery English Patient movie.

I know Elaine Benes would be with me on this.

(To give some context, in no way do I hate every movie of this general type and consider The Remains of the Day to be an example of a great film of the genre.)

just finished watching the film. A lot of the scenes at the beginning are slow but it does start to pick up with the letter mix up scene:jawdrop:
I also never saw the end twist coming. The five minute tracking shot was beautiful and will most likely end up winning best cinematography oscar. Overall a good movie but not great.

Can't disagree.

The central premise is flimsy as hell. I felt no attachment to either of the leads. I also did not buy the supposed strength of the love between Robbie and Cecilia.

Atonement, like Keira Knightley, is pretty to look at but that's about it.

I saw it last night and am still thinking about how devastatingly powerful the movie was to me. I can see some people really hating it though. The middle portion of the movie does drag a bit, especially in the scenes with just adult Briony as played by Romola Garai. I thought Garai was the weakest actor in the cast and brought little to the role. James McAvoy is awesome though. I'd love for him to be the next big star. He blows Orlando Bloom out of the water. And big props to Vanessa Redgrave who just utterly brings it full force in her tiny amount of screentime.

How difficult is that? Orlando Bloom is a TERRIBLE actor. People seriously need to check out these two lesser known (or seen) James McAvoy movies: "Rory O'Shea Was Here" and "Starter for 10". I don't how anyone could hate "Atonement". Sure, it might not be your cup of tea. But it's an extremely well done movie.

This is obviously never going to be released in my barren wasteland of a town, so I'm looking forward to the R2 DVD release on Feb. 4th...

It was definitely Oscar-bait (and it worked for the Golden Globes, as it got the most nominations), but I wouldn't consider it a real contender. I enjoyed it, but I found it stretched in the middle, when Robbie and Cecilia weren't on screen together.

It's just because Bloom has been considered the "hot" young British actor for a few years now because of LOTR and Pirates but we've all seen him stumble badly whenever he has the lead role. It's nice to see another young, handsome but far more talented Brit take his rightful place in the spotlight.

Honestly, I think Orlando Bloom would make a better model than actor. He was cool in the relatively dialogue-free role of Legolas but he was the weakest link in the whole Pirates trilogy and brought so little to Kingdom of Heaven.

I want to see this one bad, but it's not playing in my city :(

I like Orlando Bloom. :shrug:

This movie is playing at one theatre in our town and there's too many other films I still want to see.

I'll echo my sentiments that technically, the film is very good (direction, cinematography, sets, costumes), though the story lacks an emotional undercurrent, mainly because it has a bit of dishonest storytelling at its core, so any character development you might have enjoyed evaporates in the last act of the film, and whatever angst and tugging of heart strings rings hollow and false. The acting is uneven for the lead character of Briony causing tonal shifts from the 1st act to the middle act which causes the film to run out of steam prematurely, which undermines the concept of "atonement" for Briony as the film concludes.

I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.

You could make the argument that that's the point. A romance that turns completely tragic because of one small thing. Anyway, I quite enjoyed it.

Caught a showing of this movie finally with my girlfriend tonight.

I really enjoyed the first half of the film. Once the film started to concentrate on present day Briony, it started to spiral downward. That was probably my only gripe with them movie (as well as the ending).

I'd give the film a B-. Both Keira Knightley and James McAvoy were fantastic in their roles.

I caught this today as well. Decent movie, but not Best Picture material, IMO. The leads were both great though.

Best movie I've seen released in last year. Joe Wright is a phenomenal director. The acting was wonderful, and everything looked great.

Glad to see I'm not the only one that really appreciated it. The ending floored me.

I saw it yesterday and it is a good film that does a lot of things right - good direction, some really strong performances by McAvoy, Redgrave, Ronan, great score, nice cinematography. I didn't mind the end, in fact I thought it was rather powerful (despite invalidating most of what came before).

But, it just felt lifeless.....its like everyone turned in very professional work, but no one brought the heart. It's a good movie, but I wouldn't consider it "Best Picture" material.

I thought the leads had a lot of heart.

I saw this tonight and parts of the movie were extremely powerful. I can see Patman's point of view and hardercore's as well. The movie does start to run out of steam in the middle, but overall it was pretty good. I don't like period dramas, but I liked Atonement.

I saw this last night and although I appreciate the beauty and power of the film, it just isn't my style of movie. Too long, too depressing. I give it a C but primarily on the basis of it being a genre I really don't care for. As the Bus said, if you like period dramas this would be your movie.

I guess this is the official thread.

Wow. What a beautiful film. Joe Wright is such an amazing director. I was thoroughly impressed with Pride & Prejudice when I watched it a couple months back and really looked forward to seeing his next picture. Every shot in the film could be framed and hung on a wall. The film itself was decent I think I actually liked the storyline and characters better in Pride & Prejudice but everything else here was better.

Wright was robbed the Oscar nomination. He deserved the nomination over the Best Picture nod.

Decent film, gorgeous to look at. I hope Wright directs films that I have more of an interest in.

That Reitman got a nom over Joe Wright was an abomination. I agree with the above sentiments completely.

I don't see the invalidation. It's all fiction anyway, so it's both a happy and sad ending. Especially if you subscribe to the idea of parallel universes.

The sort of coldness of the film appealed to me for some reason too, but I'd call it a more distant feeling than cold, which makes sense considering Briony only witnessed all of these things.

I think it deserved it's nominations, and should've had a directorial one as well.

Agreed. Though I haven't seen No Country For Old Men yet.

My only gripe is only the girl who play adult Briony.

Just watched this last night and I honestly don't get any of the praise it received. It's really a terribly written story. The mixing up of the letters came off as idiotic and contrived, especially considering that he realized what he'd done 2 seconds after handing the dirty note to a little girl. No less ridiculous was the little girl turning on him and everyone immediately buying her story about him raping her cousin. I know they threw in the line about her family already looking down on him and that just being an excuse, but please. If that was the case, they did a piss poor job of conveying it. If Keira Knightley's character stepped forward and said no, he was fucking me, not attacking me, it seems they would've had to at least take some time with an investigation instead of arresting McAvoy within a couple hours of the crime.

It was also a huge mistake to jump from McAvoy getting arrested to him being in the war. There would've been a good chance of him ending up in the war regardless, so showing that as the consequence of the little bitch's lies really removed a lot of the tragedy from it. There was a throwaway line about how terrible prison was, but we didn't see any of that. The love story wasn't developed at all either, so the audience doesn't really get any real emotional connection to what McAvoy's character supposedly 'lost' due to his wrongful arrest.

The entire story felt absurd and contrived. The twist at the end might have resonated if the movie were based on a true story, but since it wasn't, it just came off as a laughable attempt to force some meaning into a story about cardboard cut-outs of characters. And it can be refreshing to see a movie try to do something different with its score, but those goddamn typewriter-driven pieces just about made me want to stop the movie, remove it from my player and break the disc in half. You might as well have had a children's choir singing, 'All this is because of the letter! Remember the letter? You know, the **** letter that he accidently gave his love?!' It would've have been no less subtle.

I'll admit that the tracking shot was great, the movie was very pretty to look at and some of the performances were pretty damn good. I just have no idea how those things alone earn a best picture nod, when so many other aspects of the movie were completely lacking.