Review of Atonement (2007) by Carlo B — 23 Jul 2012

I don't really know what to say about the background of this film, it's not a particularly interesting. It's adapted from an excellent novel by Ian McEwan which functions wonderfully as a tragic romance, intriguing character study and meditation on the power of fiction. It's directed by Joe Wright who was previously best known for his adaption of Pride and Prejudice which like this also starred Keira Knightley and its a fairly straightforward adaption. It makes no significant changes to the story and since people don't read books shocked the movie world by becoming one of the most accessible "artsy" British films that critics so love in a long time. The movie garnered multiple Academy Award Nominations including Best Picture and solidified the at the time debatably questionable careers of the very talented Knightley and James MacAvoy. What else can be said about this film on a surface level? It was well liked and received by audiences but didn't become a massive hit, was nominated for many awards but won relatively few also topping very few Best of Lists for the year and garnered so significant controversies or media interest. In fact though many film fans still enjoy and even discuss the film it's mostly faded into the back of the pop culture ethos making barely a mark. With all this in mind just how good is Atonement really? Let's take a sweet cunt look.

Our film centers around the world of young Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) a precocious thirteen year old girl growing up on her wealthy parents posh estate on the English countryside during the 1930s before WWII. Briony leads a sheltered life and expresses herself and explores her world by writing increasingly more daring stories culminating in her first play she writes in honor of the return of her brother Leon from his year at University. Her cousins Pierrot, Jackson and Lola (Juno Temple) Quincy are also arriving to stay with her family as their mother has run off with a Radio Newsman and she enlists their aid in putting on the production of her play. But when the boys prove to rambunctious to focus on acting Briony washes her hands of the whole affair and retreats to sulk. While doing so she witnesses a curious incident by a fountain on the estate grounds between her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and the house keeper's son Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) a scene she doesn't fully comprehend or interpret the right way as she has no context for it and can't hear what they're saying. She becomes convinced that Robbie is a sort of black hearted villain in the fanciful stories she writes and after misinterpreting a letter she intercepts between them and witnessing a sordid scene between them in the library Briony is compelled to tell a lie which will destroy the potentially happy lives of her sister and Robbie, a terrible lie for which she will eventually have to seek atonement.

Let me begin by saying Atonement is one of my favorite contemporary novels, I fucking love how it sets up the first seventy five percent of the book like a strange and dreamlike play, before the big reveal that indeed it's all been a story by Briony we've been reading and what really happened was much more tragic. It just works so well as its an author who obviously has a penchant for telling stories exploring a character who can't stop making her own stories till the bitter end and that feels deeply personal and more than a little sad. Because Briony who is like her or not (and most don't like her) the protagonist and central character is herself an author, Atonement just functions better as a novel than any film adaption could hope to. But this is a damn fine film adaption and deserves to also be viewed on its own merits. As Briony laments in the very beginning, "when you're writing you just have to say castle and people imagine turrets, and towers and walls but with plays it becomes just so tricky, and you must rely on other people" and just so is it in trying to create the fictionalized world within a world of Briony's atonement. Ian McEwan accomplished this with masterful prose and by being a great author but Joe Wright must do this all visually and he does so like a true master behind the camera. Until the big reveal first time viewers may take issue with how the movie never really connects with a sense of realism, the world seems to move along to the clacking of the typewriter driven soundtrack (which considering adult Briony is writing a novel and that's what we are seeing that's very clever) and the pieces move about very deliberately in an eerie off putting and very staged way which is very much the director's intention. But it's not all unrealistic what roots us to Briony's story despite the phoniness of it and how the ending even reveals some crucial details in it were false is how it connects with us emotionally. Newcomer Saoirse Ronan is one of the best child actors I've ever seen, betraying a million different emotions behind those ever staring pale blue eyes and really delivering when it counts particularly the library discovery. I was really blown away by how such a young actress could so thoroughly inhabit such a complex character and the older Brionys' played by Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave respectively look the part and effectively mimic their younger counterpart incredibly well. Benedict Cumberbatch also has a masterfully creepy turn as the boorish chocolate mogul Paul Marshall which is another impressive addition to quite an impressive resume. But the real stars of the film are Keira Knightley who struts across the screen like a Golden Age of Hollywood Screen Goddess and delivers the emotional scenes with great understated impact and particularly James McAvoy as the at turns haunted and prone to violence Robbie who plays a compelling and likeable character through a variety of emotional states.

Atonement is a sort of modern classic and very remarkable like its source material it manages to cover quite a bit of ground in a single story. It's a story of romance, coming of age and war rolled into one but not forced on any account. The cinematography is bright and crisp and beautiful, the landscapes breathtaking and Joe Wright shows himself to be quite a talented Director. I will say though I've never agreed with Briony at the ending I've always found her changing the ending not to be an act of kindness as she puts it but selfishly hiding what shes ashamed of and an unintentional dishonor to her sister and Robbie's memory as her playing fast and loose with the truth is what caused all the trouble to begin with. Though I do like it a little better in the movie as she states everything on TV so in the universe she sets the record straight instead of just writing it in her private journal. Still Atonement is a bitingly original excellent British drama with a killer cast it just can't escape the fact the plot will just conceptually function better in a book.