This film is taken from Ian McEwans novella, which ran to only 160 odd pages. From memory, it was an excruciating painful book to read, full of silences and the lack of language. I was left with a feeling of the small tragedy and pathos of it all.
That novella has been padded for this film, and everywhere the padding is, it veers off course. Even though Ian McEwan himself was involved in the production of the film, the ending is just awful and all I could do was look at the prosthetics and think about how implausible the whole scenario was. Despite excellent acting from the wonderful Saoirse Ronan, the film’s a bit of a slow dud.
My rating: 2.5/5 (or may be 3 once I get over my annoyance at the ending)
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 