I’ve watched Atonement twice –once before this site even existed and again more recently - and honestly, the film managed to captivate my attention twice for its entire running time. Director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice) and screenwriter Christopher Hampton’s cinematic adaptation of the British romantic novel by Ian McEwan is outstanding, enthralling and at some times arresting. The three pillars of any film are direction, acting and script, and these are perfectly combined in here to make it work. It has already obtained the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, and although this year’s nominees for the Oscars in this category will not make the decision easy for the Academy members, I’d bet most of my chips on Atonement.

The movie is set in pre-World War II England, and tells the story of Briony Tallis (played by Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave throughout it), a British thirteen-year-old fledgling writer from a very wealthy family who cannot accept the fact that her sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) is in love with Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), who’s only a little better than a servant. The day their brother Leon (Patrick Kennedy), comes back home with his friend Paul Marshall (Benedict Cumberbatch) after an apparently long absence, Briony sees the two lovers in three different very compromising situations. That very night she accuses Robbie of being a pervert and more importantly, of a crime she knows he has not committed which alongside with the braking of the war, changes the courses of several lives, even her own, forever.

The reason why Atonement works much better than the average melodrama is the way it is directed. The dialogue sequences are long but effective and masterfully shot. The way the story’s told is good, and although certain scenes are repeated showing them from Briony’s or Cecilia’s perspective, they’re never confusing. Even though the war scenes are not as well directed as the dramatic ones, Wright doesn’t shy away from showing the cruelties of battle, which are truly devastating consequences of what Briony foolishly did in her early teenage years. I really don’t know how the director manages to engage the audience so much, especially during the first 45 minutes in which we are introduced to the characters and the most critical part of the story, Robbie’s false crime, is developed and portrayed; but he certainly does. This initial part is able to enthrall the viewer as much as any great intellectual thriller, and is as compelling as the most visceral portion of the film; it is also much better than the second and third acts.

Perhaps the responsibility doesn’t rely on the director but on the screenwriter; or maybe, and more probably it relies on both. The script is so well written that after two hours spent sitting in the cinema, the audience will feel more than satisfied -in an intellectual level- due to the magnificence of the movie they’ve just watched. Although the film deals with deep subjects like grief, guilt and regret, the screenplay is smart enough to deepen into them, emphasizing the impact they have on the protagonists. Every single character is interesting and complex, and the movie never drags, making the story more than interesting. The plot isn’t straightforward but, unlike Michael Clayton, this way of telling the story adds a feeling of “this terrible thing happened because of something someone did” to the film, which helps the tone and mood of the motion picture.

The performances, especially by all three actresses who portray Briony, are excellent too. Every performer makes his or her characters believable; this couldn’t have been achieved without a script as good as Atonement’s but the latter would’ve been useless without actors as good as James McAvoy or Keira Knightley. Vanessa Redgrave’s performance is the best of the film, and although she only appears in it for about ten minutes, the revelation she makes is absolutely relevant and the way she acts is astonishing; the way she speaks, all her face expressions during her close ups are incredible. If Ruby Dee got an Academy Award nomination for his four minutes performance in American Gangster, Redgrave ought to have gotten one as well. It’s not about how long an actor is in a movie, it’s all about how he/she performs, but some people don’t seem to take this into account. Saoirse Ronan’s performance is the second best, making her character which is the most complex of them all, believable and captivating even in her teen years. 

The style achieved for the movie is also fantastic. The score is the most original and innovative I’ve come across lately; the mixture of the piano music with the typewriter’s sounds, which are used as percussion instruments, is absolutely awesome. Visually, the movie has some nice war shots which occur in northern France and some of the camera angles used here are innovative, making every frame worth looking at, and Keira Knightley even more beautiful. The pacing isn’t perfect because the movie can’t keep the suspense generated in the first part for the rest of it, and isn’t as interesting in its middle section as in the first and third acts, but the film never drags; actually it doesn’t run for 130 minutes but for about 110. Costume design and art direction are consistently good, making us feel as if we were at the time the story’s being. The makeup department was capable to make all three Brionys actually resemble each other making the story even more believable.

Ultimately, Atonement is an excellent motion picture that combines a next-to-perfect script with a brilliant direction style and good performances to recreate a story which is more interesting and compelling than most of the movies from any genre. Viewers looking for a feel-good story or some comedic relief might not enjoy the film as much more open minded viewers. (This reminded me of Taxi Driver.) I reckon I hadn’t been so close to tears at the end of a movie since I watched Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter. I thoroughly enjoyed this film both times I watched it, and it’s undoubtedly one of the best movies –if not the best- of 2007. 

© Mauricio Kahn

Lima, Feb 2008

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