Review of Atonement (2007) by Stephen T — 03 Feb 2011

To comprehend the intent of Joe Wright's epic, I feel one must shed the pretense with which one has been influenced to watch it -- that is the notion that Atonement is a film about romance. It isn't.

And Wright certainly did what he could to warn viewers, namely with the project's title. Atonement is a film about innocence in all its paradigms, and how with it comes naivety -- and how naivety can breed problems when he or she of naivety is unaware of such.

By that opinion, the movie is unquestionably about Briony Tallis (played exquisitely by both Saoirse Ronan and Romola Garai at ages 13 and 18, respectively; and briefly by Venessa Redgrave around age 75), and in following the focus of the story, Atonement opens and ends with her.

The romantic aspect is one largely manifested by Briony's own guilt, and the sequences in the movie's thick middle that include Kiera Knightley and the terrific James McAvoy longing for one another serve as both a dramatic enactment of what could have been; and, more importantly, a parable about growth through pain, which parallels Briony's quest for atonement.

If you are to view Atonement as a romantic tome, you may well end up disappointed -- and you very certainly will have missed the point. It's not even an elegy (though a beautiful one it would be); it's a soliloquy -- visualized for us by Briony.

And it as well is a beautiful one.