Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
1/24/08
There's a certain kind of
movie that only, it seems, pops up at this time of year. British
people in period costumes inflict offenses upon each other that modern
people (even English ones) likely wouldn't find that big of a deal, but
honor is sullied, lives are ruined and Oscars are won. I freely admit
to prejudging Atonement as a costume drama snoozer and purchasing
a ticket only because it won the Golden Globe for Best Picture-Drama.
About fifteen minutes in, as well-dressed, wealthy Brits sun themselves
while exchanging banal conversation, I dearly regretted that purchase.
But Joe Wright's film version of Ian McEwan's revered novel has one trick
after another up its' sleeves, and slowly pulled me into its' dense inner
world. One of the best jobs I've ever seen of putting a character's
tortured mental process on screen, Atonement positively squirms
with its' own unease... as would you, if you were inside the head of Briony
Tallis, who at the age of 13 did a very bad thing. One she can never
take back.
It's 1935 and all is sunshine
and wealth at the estate of the Tallis family. Of particular concern
to us are their two daughters, Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and little Briony
(Saoirse Ronan), both of whom are in love, in their own way, with the housekeeper's
son, Robbie Turner (James McAvoy). Aspiring writer Briony fancies
herself endlessly bright and wise, but in fact her knowledge of the ways
of the adult world is quite limited. So much so that a chance reading
of a letter Robbie wrote to Cecilia and catching the two of them making
love leads her to an inescapable conclusion: he is a marauding “sex
maniac”. Alas, there actually IS one of those on the estate, and
when her cousin Lola (Juno Temple) is raped, Briony just KNOWS she saw
the attacker, and KNOWS it was Robbie. When she informs the police
of this knowledge, he's hauled off to prison. Flash forward four
years, to the height of World War II. Released only so he could join
the army, Robbie drifts like a ghost through the Dunkirk Evacuation dreaming
of returning home to Cecilia. Back on the homefront, Briony (now
Romola Garai) has become a nurse, and witnesses the horrible damage the
war is doing to soldiers just like him. Is there any way she can
make up for the damage she's caused?
The early portions of Atonement
keep their focus locked on Briony and effectively demonstrate the inner
world of a precocious child. It's so easy at that age to be certain
your every clever thought makes you the Smartest Person in the World, and
we watch her awkwardly lord her superiority over the cousins who are to
make up the cast of her "brilliant" new play. Certainly Robbie is
foolish to accidentally send Cecilia the wrong letter AND to ask Briony
to hand-deliver it, but he can't begin to imagine how she'll react when
she reads “The worst word in the world” (which Wright cleverly demands
that we read onscreen again and again without ever having anyone say it
aloud). One bad break after another piles up so quickly, and it's
easy to see how she comes to a horribly wrong conclusion, even as we know
only too well who the real rapist is (Benedict Cumberbatch is so odious
in an earlier scene lusting after poor underaged Lola that he'd probably
be attacked by the audience if such a thing were possible).
***SPOILER WARNING:
SAVE THIS PART OF THE REVIEW UNTIL AFTER YOU'VE SEEN THE MOVIE***
But it's when we move forward
in time that Atonement really starts to kick into gear. Yes,
it's true, the Dunkirk sequence does drag on too long, even with its' sensationally
endless 5-minute tracking shot of the human wreckage awaiting rescue, but
it's at this point that the movie starts to lose itself into a sort of
feverish nightmare reality where things are just subtly wrong. Doubly
so back in the world of the older Briony, whose guilt-wracked life surrounded
by the shattered bodies of soldiers is a nightmare no matter how it's lived.
Weird detail piles on top of weird detail, events begin to flow into each
other with the temporal logic of a dream, and then finally... well, everything
makes perfect sense.
Regular readers of the site
know I love twist movies, and Atonement was the last place I expected
to find a climactic Gotcha!, but it's a very good one. Kudos to Wright
and his technical crew for keeping the “off” level in the visuals high
enough to set things up yet subtle enough to keep you wondering “is it
just me...?” I really loved the relentless banging of typewriter
keys that's part of Dario Marianelli's excellent score, and like much of
the movie, it plays even better in retrospect. It's lots of fun to
take the information from those final scenes and think back over everything
we see when Briony's not in the room and think about why we see it in the
particular way that we do, especially that tracking shot.
***END OF SPOILERS***
The acting is strong across
the board, but it's the many faces of Briony that shine the most.
Ronan nails that unsettling amorality that can come with the certainty
children have, and she pivotally makes the young girl as sympathetic as
she is dangerous. Garai is just the right kind of hollowed-out as
the older version, “mysterious” in all the wrong ways. Knightley
and McAvoy are nicely natural in roles that call for them to be alternately
proper and steamy. It's important to the story that their sexuality
feel as natural to us as it does alien to Briony, and both actors pull
that off very well. They also shine in their two post-arrest scenes
together, although I leave it for you to discover their nature. Adding
icing to the cake is a small but perfect turn by Vanessa Redgrave as...
well, that would be telling.
Wright directs with absolute
assurance, and it's rare to see a movie where every frame is working toward
a common goal as much as this one. He joins with Christopher Hampton's
screenplay to do a great job of taking McEwan's literary ideas and making
them visual. This is the kind of movie that fills up the early hours
of the Oscar telecast, with top-notch work in virtually every technical
area.
Atonement is a pleasant
awards season surprise for those adventurous enough to spend two hours
inside the guiltiest of consciences. It's a good reminder not to
assume every pastoral British drama is a bloodless bore. And an even
better one to double-check every letter before you seal the envelope. |
