Just what I expected

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This movie is hard to get into since it has many things going on. When the end came I thought that there was going to be a part two. There was not a part two-that was the movie in it's entirety. I did not like this movie. This is 90 minutes of my life that I will never get back.

Generally speaking, children don't just disappear off the face of the earth. When a child is reported missing or murdered, parents and people known to the child are routinely investigated as persons of interest because stranger abductions are very rare. Nevertheless stories about missing children have a universal scare element that draws readers and viewers and has been the basis of some memorable films, from the 1975 arthouse classic Picnic at Hanging Rock to the true crime TV film Adam and the feature Without a Trace (both 1983), all of them made well before Ian McEwan published his novel A Child in Time. So he wasn't exploring new thematic territory as much as exploiting a very familiar theme that, if this adaptation is any indication, he didn't really have much interest in and threw away as soon as he'd gotten the reader's attention with it. Like previous reviewers I'm amazed at how quickly the parents give up their seach for their little girl. The nasty rageaholic mother even sneers at the father's attempt to put up posters asking for help--if this were another type of story she would probably turn out to be the murderer. But that's not the point, right? The point is for the filmmakers to make an elegant tone poem in muted colors while the actors do their Bafta best and Ian McEwan scores points using the subject of child abduction as coldly and irresponsibly as he used child rape in Atonement.

Based on a novel by Ian McEwan, the subject matter of the movie is not an easy one.Benedict Cumberbatch was really good in this. I applaud anything that takes on difficult subject matters, but it was a very strange movie and the plot was a little jagged in edges. I couldn't grasp where it was going or why. The unevenness of it makes it a tough one to rate and review. It was unsettling to watch and sometimes just plain odd.

I so wanted to like this. I have to admit I enjoy everything Benedict Cumberbatch does and I thought he was excellent in it. The loss of the daughter was dealt with fairly briefly and the story did not dwell on the immediate loss for long. One was soon aware that some time had passed - but not indicated very clearly - I guessed five years, but I think it turned out to be three. The marriage had broken up, which was understandable in many ways and he was trying to continue with normal life though still "haunted" by visions of his daughter, which at one point began to seem like a credible sighting. Less easy to follow was the Parliamentary committee link and his friend Charles who undergoes a drastic and painful nervous breakdown - one just wondered why the character and his wife were brought in. NOT having read the book, I was unaware that Charles's wife was a scientist doing some sort of research into Time and Relativity. Perhaps if that had been made clear I'd have been less puzzled by the seaside pub scenes. I had NO idea even up to the end that the young woman IN the pub was supposed to be his own mother, when younger, seeing a vision of him! I'd thought it was his wife as a teenager. And the "vision" of a young boy smiling at him on the Tube - again a total puzzle. I could have done with a little more "signposting" as to when things were occurring - two weeks, three months, four years etc And the visions could have had a more misty quality, a draining or an enhancing of colour for instance. Yes, I know, very clichéd, but it would have helped an otherwise bewildering story. One could never quite grasp where it was going or why. However, that is not to criticise the performances - I thought the actors were ALL excellent and believable in character - particularly the repressed and edgy Charles. It's just some of the events (you do NOT just walk into a school and talk to a child unchallenged!) and the lack of corroborative detail, made it a "bald and unconvincing narrative"!