Atonement

Sit back and watch the film showing you what pictures could do for a story.


By Linda Winsh-Bolard


It is the Summer of 1935 at an English manor complete with fields, garden fountains, stone houses, cabriolets and dinner guests.

The Tallis, thirteen years old Briony (Saoirse Ronan), her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley), their brother, their parents and their protege, housekeeper's son Robbie (James McAvoy) will be joined for the reading of the first play Briony wrote at the dinner party by Paul Marshall (Benedict Cumberbatch), owner of the local chocolate factory, young cousin Lola (Juno Temple) and other guests.
But before this family event takes place, things are already set to change.

While pondering the troubles she is having with her actors, Briony observes an exchange between Cecilia a Robbie by the garden fountain and misconstrues it. Later she given a chance to influence things when she reads a letter Robbie had given her for Cecilia and delivers it, although she realizes the was not meant to be delivered. Her decision brings Robbie and Cecilia sexually together while Briony sees them.

That same evening, the adults notice that two of the kids are missing at dinner and start a search for them. Briony finds Lola in the garden while she is being sexually assaulted by a grown male.

Briony' revenge on her sister and Robbie is brutal, she tells the investigating officer that she is sure the man was Robbie. No one seems to remember that is was Paul who flirted with Lola. Robbie is sentenced to prison and only released to be send to fight in France.

The rest of the film is about how Briony deals with the injustice and suffering she had caused, and how she sees the people whose life she has affected.

Interesting, but the real strength of the film is in the picture. Indeed, this is one of the few movies that are about pictures. Dialog is minimal, as are explanations of the past and ties among the people; most of what you discover you will discover watching it. It is an interwoven visual web of Briony's past, her memories and her present, up to the very end when she is growing old and sickly as an successful writer (Vanessa Redgrave) of many novels.

From the very beginning the inevitability of fate is felt, ever so strongly, in that distant past, in the bucolic setting of the English country side that somehow so much reminded me of Bergman's Wild Strawberries. It is all there, already written in the heavy book of humanity, yet the people involved are blissfully unaware, happily seeking their futures. Their lives were so beautiful, so polished, so cultured. The films shows the gowns, the furniture, drapes, landscapes, all that long gone leisure. security and brutal shallowness of certain class that could even afford to be magnanimous to housekeeper's son, send him to Oxford-and then dismiss him with: He never did much with it. The shadow of war and death is already there in the lighting, the music, the foreboding score of Dario Marieanelli makes excellent choice for the genre, in the small, sharp features of the future survival Briony.

Real understanding of the past will come through replayed scenes each with added details, nice directorial choice. The contrasting 4 minutes long steadicam shot of Dunkirk is also excellent.

It is not a tragic love story, while McAvoy comes off very well in acting, his character is more of an object than subject of the story, nor is it Knightly who carries the story. Having chosen the part of a grown Cecilia rather than the young Briony, she gave up on character development and film time. Cecilia is soft, pretty , loving as Knightly often is, but it really is Briony's story; the girl who became, as the only one, a success. Does she atone? Did she ever? Should she? She does not seem to, she seems at the end of the film as self assured as she was when she said: I saw him. She, who moved things, still seems to think she does.

Both, the young Briony, Saoirse Ronan, and the grown up, Romola Garai, portray a strong, not a nice person, and they are well matched. This is not sympathetic main character. And that makes for a nice change. Society has changed, this is what it changed into.

Don't be fooled by name or marketing, and you will enjoy the film for what it is, however brutal it might seem when you remove the silk wrapping from the core of selfishness.

Based on a novel by Ian McEwan.

Director: Joe Wright, Camera: Seamus McGarvey, Music: Dario Marieanelli, Screenplay: Christopher Hampton
Cast: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, Vanessa Redgrave, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brenda Blethyn, Juno Temple, Gina McKee, Harriet Walter