Atonement(2007)- User Reviews

Coming out of the theater after seeing Atonement, I felt tricked by the movie. But then again, I think that the story is entirely about deception, especially the kind that one tells one’s self. Based on Ian McEwan’s labyrinthine novel, director Joe Wright takes the twists and turns of the story in stride, but perhaps at the expense of understanding the material.

The story starts off with a little girl named Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan), a 13-year-old writer with a large imagination. One afternoon, she sees an incident between her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and the son of a revered servant named Robbie (James McAvoy). What she sees seems sinister to her. This leads to events that will take place later that night when Robbie makes a horrible mistake when he mixes up a fantasy letter for an apology letter to go to Cecilia, but not before getting intercepted by Briony. She reads the letter and starts to change how he sees him, which encourages the grave injustice performed when a terrible crime takes place and Briony thinks she sees Robbie doing it. But then again, we can tell she has a puppy crush on him as well, but knows that his love goes to her sister. Just maybe she also felt that she needed to punish the two lovers.

Either way, four years pass, Robbie is on the front lines of World War II in order to get out of jail. He’s caught behind enemy lines, trying to make it back home to Cecilia who has forsaken the family who allowed Robbie to get flushed down the system for the sake of convenience, and perhaps, to punish the medical school hopeful for trying to break out of his place in the order of things. Briony (now played by Romola Garai) is now 18 and has given up college to take up a job as a nurse. We are told that she’s starting to take responsibilities what she has done (though we never see that realization ourselves).

In fact, I don’t really think she truly understands just what she has done even to her dying breath though, as the title says, she’s trying to atone for her arrogance. But as we get to the ending, we see that she’s still as arrogant and believes she has found the best way to pay for her crime. To be honest, I would have been more appreciative if the film would have ended with Briony plainly saying, “What I have done was horrible, stupid, and childish. It caused people heartache beyond what I could possibly understand. And I have to live with that for the rest of my life. I have to go to my grave knowing that I’ve hurt people I’ve loved. But that’s a cross I have to bear alone.”

But what confuses me the most about how I feel about the movie is it’s tone, structure and pacing. Like many films early this year, it goes out of chronological order. At first, it was subtle yet unneeded for the most part; where we go from the way that Briony observes things to the way they happened in their complete context. Just looking at the scenes from Briony’s perspective, we already know that we’re missing something and would put more suspense on what we don’t know as this girl arrogantly starts forming her accusation. Then the last part of the film’s jump-cuts use title cards that really became annoying and took me out of the movie.

There is a way to look at the film that shows a kind of brilliance. Without spoiling the film, let me just advise you to pay attention to the three books written by Briony in the film and how they evolve in relation to the real world around her. If you look at the film through that lens, there’s a brilliance that I cannot talk about without ruining the movie. But at the same time, no matter how brilliant it is, the movie still feels hollow.

The acting in the film isn’t very noteworthy. But I should say that James McAvoy gives his best performance to date in this movie (but that’s not saying much for Mr. McAvoy’s acting in so much his choice of projects). But it’s sad that Keira Knightley would trade in all her talent to be a wallflower in this movie. But I have to give some respect for Ms. Saoirse Ronan for her brilliant performance as the young girl Briony. Her strength is in her eyes and open face. She doesn’t have to talk to get points across. In fact, there are great scenes where she doesn’t talk at all and doesn’t need to.

Director Joe Wright’s sophomore film after his brilliant Pride and Prejudice is somewhat of a let-down. But that’s fine since I can tell that he tried to make the film interesting. The only problem is that he tried too hard. Early in the film, he switches back and forth to Cecilia and Robbie and thinks that just by showing them cut back and forth that it shows some sort of connection. And his trademark long shot in this film concerning the Dunkirk Retreat doesn’t have the flair as in his earlier work, but I’m sure that’s primarily because I noticed that we were looking at a long take. That’s not to say that the shot is bad, but felt obligatory. If there is a director who can take up the mantle left empty by David Lean, it would be Mr. Wright. I just hope he doesn’t let his technique outshine his story.

All in all, I am going to recommend the movie, but with some hesitancy. It’s a little precious in places, but has its heart in the right place. I am fascinated by it’s look at deception and the characters are compelling enough, though the acting left something to long for. The production value is amazing and the direction is sturdy. And while I’m certain that Birony doesn’t atone for her transgression, maybe the point in the story is that there is no real way to atone. What’s done is done and you have to accept your part in the mess. To me, that’s enough.