Atonement. The most imagination-inducing, gut-wrenching movie since City of Angels. Remember that one? I was already imagining them--the fallen angel and the doctor--as an exciting, happy-ever-after couple living a passionate life... when the doctor was killed in a kind of freak accident and the fallen angel was left roaming this world as a mere mortal... and a single one, at that. If you don't like Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan, who starred in this flick, don't think about them. Think about the story. I used to joke that the moral of this story is, "Don't close your eyes and take your hands off the steering handle when you're riding your bicycle at high speed in the mountains." but my friend, who was rendered completely grief-stricken by this movie, hated me for it. Well, okay, I had to agree: it IS quite a beautiful love story.
Now. About Atonement (spoiler alert: if you haven't seen the movie or read the book, you might want to stop reading this post). It left me thinking which parts of the story were real, and which parts were mere fruits of Briony's wild imagination--in her desperate attempt for atonement. As if the story's not gut-wrenching enough, a friend of mine gave a comment that went like this: "So, the moral of the story is: if you're a good person, you get slandered by your lover's little sister, sent to prison, and die a gruesome death in war; and if you're a lying, ruthless, wildly dirty-minded teenager, you can send a good person to his death, get to live until you're 80, and become a famous author writing about the hell you've caused in other people's life"... talking about fairness. Some say "life ain't fair, honey" but this story is a blatant example. I still have to read the book, by the way. I usually think it's a crime to watch a book-based movie before I actually read the book, but well, anyways... there's still time for "atonement" (pun intended).
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