10 "Important" Movies Nobody Actually Likes

It may have been a slow movie year in 2007, but the outrageously strong Oscar buzz for this dull period drama/war flick/author redemption story was quite puzzling. Sure, the acting is fine, especially from James McAvoy who portrays the victim Robbie, but this film is a tonal mess that can't decide what genre it's trying to tackle.

The film begins in a quaint house in rural England that presumably doubled for the Downton Abbey set, with an annoying young girl making up stories and acting incredibly annoying throughout. She manages to misconstrue the situation involving the awful rape of her friend, and in a massive WTF moment, everyone believes her when she blames innocent gardener Robbie for the whole thing.

The film then jumps into wartime and examines the misery that McAvoy's Robbie has become, before he dies of septicaemia. Knightley's character doesn't fair much better, but right when the film should end, the film insanely jumps forward in time to a TV interview with Vanessa Redgrave. It turns out she's the grown up version of the little girl who ruined McAvoy's life. And she has dementia- no relevance to the rest of the movie, it's just there.

The film then finishes in the crappiest way possible, with the now old lady writing a book where McAvoy and Knightley end up together. But at the moment the audience is meant to cheer her on for her 'atoning act', we instead leave shaking our heads as to how she honestly thought this would achieve anything. In fairness, the dementia may have been kicking in.