Atonement

Director Joe Wright (’05’s Pride and Prejudice), Academy Award-winning screenwriter Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons), and Focus Features bring Ian McEwan’s critically praised best-selling 2002 novel Atonement to vivid life on the big screen just in time for the holidays and year-end honors as well. The NBR recently named it one of 2007’s best films. With an extremely talented and attractive cast headed by Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, the film also features the talents of Brenda Blethyn, Harriet Walter, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, and Vanessa Redgrave. The latter three all play the same character, Briony Tallis, at different times in her life.

Filmed on location in the U.K., the story of Atonement spans several decades. In 1935, 13-year-old fledgling writer Briony Tallis (Ronan) and her family live a life of wealth and privilege in their enormous mansion. On the warmest day of the year, the country estate takes on an unsettling hothouse atmosphere, stoking Briony’s active imagination. Robbie Turner (McAvoy), the educated son of the family’s housekeeper (Blethyn), carries a torch for Briony’s headstrong older sister Cecilia (Knightley). Cecilia, he hopes, has comparable feelings; all it will take is one spark for this relationship to catch fire. When it does, Briony—who has a crush on Robbie—is compelled to interfere, going so far as accusing Robbie of a crime he didn’t commit. Cecilia and Robbie declare their love for each other, but he’s arrested—and with Briony bearing false witness, the course of their lives is forever changed.

Briony continues to seek forgiveness for her childhood misdeed. Through an act of imagination, she finds the path to her uncertain atonement, and to an understanding of the power of enduring love.

Keira Knightley and James McAvoy have more than the requisite chemistry needed to pull off this romantic love story, with McAvoy being particularly noteworthy and young Saorise (pronounced “sear-sha”) Ronan holding up her end as the overly imaginative Briony. As if they aren’t just perfect enough, Vanessa Redgrave comes in at the tail end of the film and gives a master class in the old adage that states, “there are no small parts.” She is breathtakingly, scene-stealingly, award-winningly (if only she had a bit more screen time) wonderful. Between her acting and the text you will be blown away. To give further credit where credit is due, the three actresses playing Briony, at different ages, improvised together off-screen and worked out Briony’s body language and presented several choices to director Wright, who was able to select what he wanted for the film. This is a collaboration that pays off smartly.

Atonement is extraordinarily rich-looking thanks in no small part to cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, production designer Sarah Greenwood, costume designer Jacqueline Durran, and hair and make-up designer Ivana Primorac.

In the end it is Wright and Hampton’s vision of what many called an unfilmable novel that carries the day. Through the early idyllic scenes at the country estate, to the surreal landscape of chaos on the beach at Dunkirk, to the white cliffs at Dover, their command of the material never falters. I believe that Atonement surely will go down in romantic cinema history along with The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Titanic, and The English Patient as one of the genre’s best.

                                                             Jim Baldassare