Dear People of Atonement,

Let's talk about the suspension of disbelief, or, for our purposes, SOD.

As you know, generating SOD for your viewers is key for a story that might otherwise fall into that category of, hmm, I don't know, utterly implausible?

Perhaps the book is more artful in its story development (I wouldn't know as I tried to read it -- valiantly, I might add -- on three separate occasions but never got beyond the first ten pages), but this film you have concocted was so silly as to elicit derision from this consumer.

A bit more attention on the SOD, people. You must create SOD.
SOD does not come willy nilly; it must be carefully, intelligently crafted.

Granted, I was only there to see the green dress and take in some of the 20's clothing as I do truly love the sartorial style of the 1920s-- wait. The film began in 1935? Funny, how'd I get that so wrong? Anyway, the green dress-- please. Please. Do you actually expect me to suspend incredulity for that? A slit up to her girl bits? Completely backless with skinny straps in 1935? Worn by a girl of the upper class whose mother is in the house?

Please.

For the record, my favorite dress was the dropped waist, pleated wonder that Briony wore. And now, since we're talking about Briony-- um, do you people ever do like, I don't know, reality checks?

Here's Briony, an important role to cast well to be sure, and you did-- with a tow-headed, fair-skinned little chickie. Fine. But then her older sister has dark hair and dark brown eyes. Maybe this was also in the book? And the mother doesn't look related to either. Come now, is it really so hard to try an illusion of family? I guess what annoys me is that you would have had to darken Keira Knightley's hair to that horrid, unnatural color and I just don't get it. Why?

(Oh, and if you think I'm going to diss the fact that Keira can't act and you might have chosen any one of the gazillion talented British actresses available to you, I won't. I'm not na?ve, you need the big star draw . . I get it, but you might have fed her, seriously).

(And, the casting choice of young woman Briony SO did not lead us to Vanessa Redgrave, people. Come on. Are you paying anyone to cast this movie or do you throw darts at the wall?)

Other problematic sequences: Briony was the only person to see her sister so very slowly take off all her clothes, jump into the well (the well that is IN DIRECT VIEW of the house), climb out of the well, stand dripping in front of her boy-o for a good long time, re-dress, then walk across the grass back into the house soaking wet and with her shirt undone? Let me make sure I got that right, the only person who noticed this rather big show was a little girl up in the window because, oh, that's right, there were only three other children in the house, a full staff of servants running around and houseguests all of whom must have been, you know, distracted.

And a guy just happens to decide to rape a little girl because they are out looking for two little boys and he thinks there's time enough? And Briony is so confused by all the sex going on around her, oh sure, her sister's gonna be going at it in the library in that green dress before dinner AND Briony's gonna just happen to walk in on that-- yeah, I know-- in the book it must've worked, so very plausible, I guess.

Okay, enough of all that. Here's the good news: I did come away with something from this film. Granted, I've never been much of a how-romantic-to-live-in-a-English-mansion kind of girl (more of a small-cottage-by-the-beach type, myself), but thanks to your movie set choice of a truly hideous interior, I have been effectively immunized from ever falling prey to the let's-go-live-in-a-big-stone-house-in-England fantasies. Hoagly. Most hoagleriffic.

Wait, maybe big ugly house was in the book, too?

Alrighty then. That's all for now. Do better next time.

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