The title of this post is sort of tongue-in-cheek, as Atonement and Children of Men have little in common except for being populated with British actors and being adaptations of books I haven't read. But there's another superficial thing they share, and I'll get to that later in my post.

While Atonement is likely to get an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, I thought it was generally a failure. It started promising enough, and I found the English countryside scenes that make up the first half of the movie compelling, even though I knew what was going to happen from the trailer. (Although I didn't know the details, and those turned out to be more interesting than the trailer implied.)

But after that, the film switches gears and becomes an oh-the-horror-of-war picture, anchored by a 5 1/2 minute long tracking shot of the British Army's evacuation of Dunkirk that has been heralded by critics and the press as a classic shot of cinema. For a good chunk of the second half, I found myself becoming restless as the movie strayed from its earlier tone and became unmoored.

I'm generally a fan of long tracking shots, but the one in Atonement -- while an impressive technical feat even with digital enhancements -- lends no emotional impact to the film. To pull out all stops on a segment whose importance is secondary to the main themes of the film is a little strange, and to me off-putting; I would have rather watched a long shot through the gardens of the English manor during significant moments earlier in the film.

This is where my superficial comparison to Children of Men comes in: Alfonso Cuarón's masterpiece was also hyped by the media for its long takes, but that movie uses those shots wisely in service to the larger themes, and major character and plot developments occur during them. It elevated substance and style at the same time.

But back to Atonement: when the film reintroduces Briony, who has some serious atoning to do, I was once again swept into the story. And the film's ending, which was rather clever and I imagine straight from Ian McEwan's novel, makes a rather noble attempt to justify the plodding middle part of the movie. But without getting into the details, it does the exact opposite: it lessens even more the importance of the separated star-crossed lovers who dominate the war scenes, as it becomes clearer to the viewer that the entire movie is about Briony and her titular amends.

My guess is that McEwan's novel suffers less from this problem, probably by virtue of his prose and the avoidance of the cinema's demands for time compression. And I doubt his Dunkirk set piece suffers from out-of-place pyrotechnics. (But who knows, maybe he wrote the scene in iambic pentameter.) Unfortunately, the screen adaptation isn't pushing the book to the top of my to-read pile.

The movie felt like it was pushing all the right Oscar-buttons, from its sweeping typewriter soundtrack to its lush cinematography, but having seen it I wonder about its chances for the big prize. But then what will take the traditionally poorly doled-out prize? Juno? No Country for Old Men? Those are guaranteed noms, but don't seem like traditional winners. For the first time in a while, I feel like the prize is up in the air.