The very definition of Oscar bait, Joe Wright’s adaptation of Ian McEwan’s celebrated novel is posititvely oozing with quality. Set against an epic backdrop, it mixes the grandiose and the deeply intimate, and it comes tantalizingly close to earning the profundity of its denouement in which it lays bare both the beauty and limitations of art to heal. Wright certainly has style, and many of his shots are downright gorgeous, but his much-commented-on four-minute tracking shot through the chaos at Dunkirk is, in his own words, simply “showing off.” (Awards Screener DVD)