More imaginative and striking than your everyday "distinguished" film adaptation of a celebrated literary work, Atonement, scripted by Christopher Hampton from Ian McEwan's novel and directed by Joe Wright, is an effective and affecting surprise this award-movie season.
One reason it surprises, at least as far as this reviewer is concerned, is because it's substantively more credible and enjoyable than Wright's feature debut, 2005's Pride & Prejudice, which also starred Keira Knightley. I'm not sure if it was entirely Wright's idea to spice up the umpteenth film adaptation of Jane Austen's novel by treating it as if it were Wuthering Heights, but the idea was a lousy one, turning a piece that was perfectly fine as a comedy of manners into an overbaked slab of would-be Romanticism. In short, a drag.
Maybe it's the fact that McEwan's work is darker and more overtly purposeful than Austen's that makes it easier for Wright to "get" it, or at least not so overtly meddle with it. In any case, there's quite a bit less straining for effect here as the film unfolds a seemingly straightforward tragedy that has a typically McEwen-esque sting in its tail. The picture begins in the pre-WWII '30s, in midsummer at the sort of English country manor famously idealized by the likes of Waugh and Wodehouse, and in the earliest scenes Wright strikes just the right evocative notes to conjure an admittedly muggy Eden that's ripe for a fall. Precocious teen Briony (Ronan, quite energetic in her spite), the younger daughter of the household, has just written a play, and is setting to rehearse it for the evening's entertainment when she spies her older sister Cecilia (Knightley) seemingly cavorting with Robbie (McAvoy), the son of some servants. Briony, we learn, has her own schoolgirl crush on Robbie, so this doesn't sit well with her. We also learn that Robbie is in fact in love with Cecilia (and she in love with him), and when he later entrusts the already resentful Briony with a note intended for her older sister, he unwittingly sets into motion a series of events (abetted by the pervy activities of at least one adult upper-class rotter visiting the estate) that very soon put a halt to the inchoate amour between Robbie and Cecilia, and pretty much destroy Robbie's life, as he winds up in jail for a crime he not only did not commit, but was accused of whilst in the midst of a heroic act. (Because that's the kind of guy Robbie is.)
Robbie's salvation, or at least reprieve, comes in the form of the war itself… which sees him released from prison to serve as cannon fodder, more or less. He and his comrades are part of the British retreat of France, while across the English Channel, Cecilia is working as a nurse, while Briony (now portrayed by Garai with a perpetually, and understandably, furrowed brow), finally aware of her perfidy and seeking to atone, is training to be same…and writing away all the while. Wright and company do some impressive work depicting the British flight from Dunkirk, and choreograph the eventual reunion of the three characters with exemplary briskness. The coda is delivered by Redgrave, as the aged Briony, now a successful novelist, explaining the origins of her latest and last book to a television interviewer (played by director Anthony Minghella).
It's a compelling story whose ironies speak of the consolations of art, among other considerable themes, but it's conventionally compelling in its telling, only occasionally (albeit strikingly) daring in its emphases (as in the scene where Robbie playfully/ardently types out his true feelings to Cecilia). The settings are handsome, the cinematography accomplished, the performances first-rate. Knightley's Cecilia is fetching and moving, and McAvoy imbues Robbie with a sort of good-old-fashioned leading-man charisma he hasn't shown before. Yes, it is all relatively tasteful and proper, but it does manage to stick to the ribs a bit more than most films of its ilk do.
VIEW FILM STILLS: Atonement
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