Atonement

“Atonement”

USA. 2007. Directed by Joe Wright. Screenplay by Christopher Hampton. Based on the novel by Ian McEwan. Starring: James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, Vanessa Redgrave, Brenda Blethyn, Juno Temple, Felix von Simson, Charlie von Simson and Alfie Allen.

Rating: ★★★★

Atonement tells the story of two lovers whose potential for luxurious bliss in 1930s Great Britain will be destroyed by a horrendous lie. The premise may sound like just another throwback to the historical epics of the 1940s but it is to the great and unique credit of the movie based on the rich novel by Ian McEwan that it places equal gravity to that third person who tells the lie that separates the two lovers. By the end, we will see all three of their lives left mired in despair and longing for missed opportunities caused by an act of spoiled immaturity.

The movie opens in a posh, rich mansion in London where we see the Tallis family daughters, Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and 13-year old, Briony (Saoirse Ronan) who bask under the shining sun in the summer of 1935. Cecilia tries to deny it but the attraction between her and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), the son of the housekeeper, Grace (Brenda Blethyn), is strong and irresistible. Briony, who is already gazed upon by her parents as a blossoming writer, has a crush on him, too, as she glimpses in jealousy and miscomprehension a romantic flirtation that builds between Cecilia and Robbie.

Then, one day, Briony walks in on Cecilia and Robbie in the throes of carnal passion in the library and misconstrues it as him attacking Cecilia after earlier intercepting a lewd letter that he mistakenly sent out as a love letter to her sister. Thus, later when she comes across the seeming rape of one of her cousins, Lola (Juno Temple), her seething envy and misperception of Robbie combine to compel her to falsely accuse Robbie of the crime despite that she never clearly saw the real perpetrator. This false testimony’s repercussions spill over into World War II after Robbie decides to serve in the military after four years in prison and is assigned as one of the British soldiers to fight in France.

The film directed by Joe Wright and adapted by Christopher Hampton makes the shrewd choice to stay faithful to the distinctive three-act storytelling structure of the original novel while enhancing it with some modern touches of filmmaking in a few scenes. Briony’s clear remove from the true grasp of the situation, for example, is magnified from the first act’s omniscient point of view in the novel by showing the two key moments – the flirtation at the fountain and the library tryst – first in her perspective and then at ground level with Cecilia and Robbie. The second act, set four years later, flips through different time points among Robbie’s struggle to stay alive and sane in the midst of the war, Cecilia’s efforts to keep her love alive with him by exchanging letters and the nurse training of Briony (now played by Romola Garai) who is guilt-ridden for her grave, childish mistake.

Some have criticized the film for not really exploiting the true scope of the war and not feeling as epic-scaled as it should but this tale is not about battle but about tangled destinies tilted toward inexorable tragedy. Thus, Wright presents how the hopelessness and bleakness of war affect Robbie’s psyche on a more intimate scale with an unbroken five-minute take that spans across the dreary preparation of the French infantrymen at the beach in Dunkirk. This virtuoso shot and other horrific aftermaths of carnage that Robbie and Briony witness are interspersed with a fleeting, heartbreaking meeting between the two lovers and a later crucial moment with the three characters together that contemplates the sumptuous joy that they have lost and whether there is room for familial atonement and forgiveness.

All of the actors are well-suited to the material but McAvoy stands out displaying the full arc of a young idealist whose hope for romance and a college education is crushed by forces beyond his control. Knightley’s usual staccato, clipped speech works well against his quiet, genteel nature that is reduced to sullen longing. It is also a good choice to have two different gifted actresses like Saoirse Roran and Romola Garai play the young tragic catalyst to respectively give a visual transition from the girl’s act of foolish resentment through the years that pass by before she finally feels remorse from knowing how callous and devastating it was.

The biggest question lingering in most people who have read the bestseller is how well the power of the final act would translate to the movie. This is where the performance by the veteran actress, Vanessa Redgrave is so crucial to illuminating all of the story’s ironies that lie between fiction and anecdote, imagination and reality. Within the irony, both the book and the movie explore the questions regarding the range and rationale for which art can truly imitate life when it is so tragic.

Such paradoxical intricacies are at the heart of Atonement and (though I thought his Pride and Prejudice was a little disappointing in translating Jane Austen) with this film, Wright shows himself as a master of faithful translation from lyrical words to poetic images. He knows he has a story with all the personal depth and empathy to reshape an old-fashioned tale and proves he has the cinematic language to reflect them on the screen. His mastery here lends itself to period filmmaking at its finest and most modern.