Atonement, like so many films this year, is based on a best-selling novel, in this case, by Ian McEwan. Some, like No Country for Old Men have been masterful adaptations, exquisitely capturing the essence and nuance of the page and translating it to the screen with breathtaking originality. Others, like Love in the Time of Cholera utterly fail their beloved origins, becoming cinematic cautionary tales about befouling the literary holy of holies. Atonement, the second film from Pride and Prejudice director Joe Wright, rests comfortably in the former category.
Atonement opens in 1935 England. 13-year-old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan), a fledgling playwright gifted with an unquenchable imagination, enjoys the run of her family’s sprawling estate. But on this, the hottest day of the year, the gargantuan mansion becomes a place of primal desire and unsettling lusts, fueling Briony’s already fertile creative energy.
Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), the housekeeper’s son, has always carried a torch for Briony’s aloof sister, Cecilia (Keira Knightly). Far from uneducated (the girls’ benevolent father put Robbie through Cambridge, where Cecilia also attended but refused to acknowledge his existence), Robbie hopes to someday win Cecila’s heart. Despite her cold reserve, Robbie harbors hope that she might yet return his feelings.
But when Robbie’s deepest hopes are realized, Briony—who has always had a crush on Robbie—chooses to believe her own invented fantasies rather than reality, and accuses Robbie of a horrifying crime he did not commit. (The film employs a sort of Rashomon view in which the viewer is allowed to see certain events from several perspectives—one the truth and the other the misinterpreted reality). Although Robbie and Cecilia pledge their love for one another at last, their lives are instantly torn apart. And Briony will spend the remainder of her lifetime, as a young adult (Romola Garai) and an elderly woman (Vanessa Redgrave) trying to right her wrong and atone for her transgressions. Her final resolution is as catastrophic as it is astonishing.
When I walked out of 2005’s Pride and Prejudice, I told those with me that I’d see anything Joe Wright—who was making his directorial debut with the film—helmed in the future. A film of luminous beauty and power, Pride and Prejudice caught me completely off guard. Atonement, when it was announced, instantly became one of my most anticipated films of this year.
The cast is wonderful from top to bottom. McAvoy’s star is on the rise and it is entirely because of choosing rich, multi-faceted roles such as this one. Knightly, all porcelain and silk and clad in dresses so light and transparent that they hang like a second skin, undulating at the slighted breeze, deliriously captures both detached reserve and heartbroken yearning. The role of Briony is played by three actresses, each of whom build upon the other, creating a character of vast, plumbless depth. Although Redgrave guarantees an impeccable performance, it is newcomers Ronan and Garai who truly elevate the role.
Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey has fashioned a film both lustrous and painterly. Atonement glows. McGarvey and director Wright have also produced what may be the single most impressive sequence put to film this year—a five and a half minute, unbroken tracking shot of the British Expeditionary Forces massed on the beaches of Dunkirk.
Composer Dario Marianelli, who provided the breathtaking score for Pride and Prejudice, returns here with an audacious but triumphant soundtrack punctuated with the percussion of a typewriter.
Atonement is about the precariousness of life and the need to cherish everyday happiness. For as much as we like to think that we are masters of our own fate, the truth is we are born on the winds of caprice and chance more than we ever wish to admit, and a single, seemingly random event can spin our lives off in an unexpected and often tragic direction. What happens when everything we love is taken from us? How does one recover when all one has left, personal honor, is itself torn to tatters? And to what lengths must the offender go to atone for such grievous sins?
Atonement is a rare melodrama of manners. It can and will coax tears, but never by relying on maudlin sentimentality or cheap emotional theatrics. Wright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons) understand implicitly that Ian McEwan’s material is already suffused with all the necessary elements to move the human heart. There are some films that deserve—no, cry out—to be seen more than once. Atonement is such a film. It does not raze the watchtowers of our hearts all at once, but slowly, methodically, over days and weeks after the lights go up.
© Copyright 2007 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.
