too heavy. The costumes are exquisite and the performance is precise, but the atmosphere is serious. The eyes of the little girl show an air that does not match her age. When she looks at you, she is motionless, as if she wants to penetrate your soul.
And it's about atonement. If you are guilty, you will face the torture of good and evil, the choice between right and wrong, right and wrong are black and white. And the heavy tone of the film also confirms this. I don't really like this black-and-white world; I believe that reality is far more complex than a black-and-white world, too complex to be judged by morality. This is a sadder thing.
Fortunately, the film was good enough, and despite my prejudice above, it was enough to keep me watching until the moment the screen suddenly went black. An old Brianne appears.
The little girl is old. She only had those pale blue eyes that I could recognize, and it was still that cold.
She said she was going to die. She finally felt compelled to write this story before she became demented. She said the novel was so real that she didn't even change the characters' names; but she made up the ending.
In reality, she didn't have the courage to admit her mistake at all. Or rather, she has no chance at all. Robbie died of sepsis on the last day of the British retreat, and her sister died in a sewer blast. The two were never able to meet again. She put her wish for their reunion at the end of the novel.
It wasn't until here that I started to be moved by the story, or by the director. Yes, this is the reality. There are many mistakes in life that are irreversible before they can be corrected. This is the most sad thing. The sadness is not that the mistake happened, but that it was irreparable. The most you can do is make a bleak gesture, bury your head in your arms. That's it. The gurgling stream and the warm sunshine can't be saved; the best time of that boy can't be saved: he put on his best dress and walked towards his sweetheart complacently. I can't get it back.
Sometimes I wonder if this is really talking about atonement. There are two lines of atonement in the film: Robbie goes to war to atone for a crime he shouldn't have on his back; Brianne is a war nurse to atone for it. But the former should not be atonement, and the latter's atonement will not help, and the real perpetrator is happily ever after married.
In the end, we found that the old Bryant still bears this shackle. Perhaps, this film is about the inexorable sin, which is the most desolate thing.
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