The main casualty of the film’s long, murky middle and end sections is the big moral theme — and also the ingenious formal gimmick — that provides the book with some of its intensity and much of its cachet. As the title suggests, “Atonement” is fundamentally about guilt and the attempt to overcome it, and about the tricky, tragically imperfect power of art to compensate for real-life crimes and misdemeanors.

影片中后部冗长、晦暗，缺少原作对道德层面的关怀及形式的独创性——而两者恰是文学作品震撼心灵的特质所在。如题，“赎罪”根本而言是有关这种罪感及克服罪感的努力，这种努力补偿现实罪恶和不端的艺术力巧妙却（悲剧性地）并非完美。