Review of Atonement (1971) by Manny C — 11 Jan 2011

It shouldn't work: an adaptation of Ian McEwan's dense 2001 novel of secrets and lies. It just reeks of stuffy Masterpiece Theatre. Snap out of it. Damn near everything in director Joe Wright's (Pride and Prejudice) sweeping adaptation of McEwan's novel does work. It's a miracle of modern film making, ravishing, romantic, haunting and ultimately heartbreaking. Moving from the beautiful country home of a wealthy British family in 1935, on through the battlefields of war-ravaged Dunkirk and finally to the twilight of the 20th century, Wright's film gets right at your core, piercing your heart and nerves. There's no stiff upper lip to it. And best of all, it's literary in the greatest sense, because it's a mediation on the power of words.

There's Robbie Turner, played with ardent power by the beautiful James McAvoy, son of the family housekeeper (Brenda Blethyn). Robbie yearns for Cecilia Tallis, the daughter of the wealthy family he works for played with grace and force by Keira Knightley. Knightley is sensational in the role, blending beauty and bruising grace to marvelous effect. One summer afternoon, Cecilia jumps into a fountain to get back an heirloom Robbie carelessly dropped. Her anger towards him cuts deep, but he's only transfixed on her body coming out of the water, soaking through her dress.

Robbie types a note he never intends to send, expressing the bluntness of his desire. The camera zooms in as the typewriter spells out one word: cunt. Though Robbie intends for it not to be seen, he mixes it up with a much more formal note he wants to give to Cecilia, and entrusts its delivery to Cecilia's pre-pubescent sister Briony. Briony, played with magnetic force by young Saoirse (pronounced seer-sha) Ronan, harbors a school-girl crush on Robbie. She reads the note and is floored by its content, which she barely understands. She had already become more smitten when she spied Robbie and Cecilia at the fountain, but now her emerging sexuality has become something far more malevolent.

This first half of the film, adapted with unflinching brilliance by screenwriter Christopher Hampton, builds up with shattering tension. As the family gathers guests for a homecoming for Cecilia's older brother, Robbie and Cecilia meet up in the library. They know Briony has seen the note, but give in to their desire for one another. At the moment of penetration, Briony catches them and believes Robbie is assaulting her sister. It later leads to Briony accusing Robbie of sexually assaulting her fifteen year old cousin Lola. It's this one case of false witness, which Briony will atone for for the rest of her life as an author, that sends Robbie to jail and alienates Cecilia from her family. Robbie is jailed for three years until he's allowed to join the war effort. These scenes turn McEwan's words into images that stick with you long afterwards, and showcase Ronan to be an actress of extraordinary gifts.

McAvoy and Knightley play the star-crossed lovers brilliantly. Cecilia becomes a nurse caring for wounded soldiers in Britain, and only sees Robbie in short, awkward meetings. Life has taken a toll on them, but they still long for one another. McAvoy nails every nuance, and Knightley matches him step for step, heaven-sent for each other. Briony sees this too, now a teenager (and now played by Romola Garai). Garai plays her with amazing skill, especially when she comforts a dying soldier with only the power of her words.

Briony offers to recant her testimony but Cecilia and Robbie will have none of it. Robbie waits to be evacuated on the beach of Dunkirk with thousands of dying soldiers. With one five minute and thirty second shot, Wright catches all the visceral brutality of war as Robbie walks past broken buildings, stranded horses, a singing choir and a spinning Ferris wheel, effectively summing up thousands of McEwan's words with the poetry of the camera.

With cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, production designer Sarah Greenwood, editor Paul Tothill and costume designer Jacqueline Durran, Wright executes a most extraordinary vision. But Atonement wouldn't be the incredible movie it is if Wright didn't refuse to just settle for dusty histrionics. He finds a new beating heart in historical drama. It results in a movie that is combustibly thrilling, alive and sensual. Atonement is fresh.

In the end though, Wright brings the focus back onto words. We see Briony in her twilight years, now played by the extraordinary Vanessa Redgrave, giving a television interview about her latest novel. She's barely onscreen for ten minutes, but she doesn't need to be. In close-up, Redgrave gives a lesson in acting raised to the level of art, and helps the film spring its most heartbreaking surprise. There;'s a question that lies behind her words: can art help to make amends for sins?

That question is for anyone lucky enough to see this masterwork to answer. Not watching it is pretty much a sin in itself.