Stories about absent love during the outbreak of war is not a new subject either on our movie screens or even on our daily news. Even now as our troops are out fighting in Iraq, there will be loved one's and families left at home unable to breathe every time they hear a report about a soldier killed in the middle East, praying it's not their son or husband who was the unlucky one this time. It's the easiest type of tale a writer can come up with and because of that, and because the cliches are so hammered into our conscious from so many fictional war drama's.. it's also one of the hardest to pull off well.
Atonement tries to deliver something a little different than your usual absent love tale but in the end it's ambition is also it's downfall as sub-plots and an awkward direction stop the film from ever gaining momentum. The movie begins from the point of view of 13 year old Briony Tallis (outstandingly played by
Saoirse Ronan, who steals the show here) who has ambitions to be a writer and it seems academically she is years ahead of her time. When she witnesses an altercation between the smart housekeeper's son Robbie (
James McAvoy) and her older sister Cecelia (
Kiera Knightley) she knows all the words of what's going on but she doesn't understand any of them. She sits all day talking and writing about real feelings but she doesn't truly understand the meaning of it. I won't spoil the film for you but how she interprets the events of what happened that day lead to the separation of young love and sets course for the rest of the movie. Atonement, delivered in a frantic narrative that rushes back and forth between different events in the lives of the three protagonists is wonderfully shot by director
Joe Wright and his cinematographer
Seamus McGarvey whose remarkable work here is the best of McGarvey's career. The first act set in the stately home and the wonderful country garden is a world apart from Joe Wright's previous film which some dubbed 'the darkest and grittiest'
Pride and Prejudice adaptation of all time. The second act though has got to be the most stunning and huge credit must go to McGarvey and Wright for pulling it off. A wonderful five minute tracking sequence shows McAvoy looking over the soldiers left stranded on Normandy beach (extraordinarily shot in the beach of Redcar here not far from me) which is timed to perfection and is a haunting sequence which captivates you. The only problem I had with this wonderful sequence is that it was so out of place with what went on earlier in the film and it's overtly sentimentality wasn't earned by any earlier events. This was one of our first glimpses of war depicted in the film and although you couldn't take your eyes from it, the sequences didn't stir the emotions it should have. A bloody battle or a confrontation was needed for the film to earn this marvellous sequence because in truth, it seemed odd to have it placed their at a time when the film still left like a love drama. The sequence itself though deserves full credit and is extremely well done. I can't imagine how much time and effort must have gone into making it scene work as well as it does but I can imagine this sort of thing plays so much better in the context of the book. My feeling (though I could be wrong because I haven't read the book) was that this sequence was used to make up for the lack of time the film had to actually deal with the war itself as it needed to progress forward to it's next chapter. The score from Italian composer
Dario Marianelli who also scored Wright's last movie I found to be a little too experimental. His main theme was a little moronic and over used for my liking and it's slow quality probably led to the movie's static feeling at times and the use of diegetic noises like the typing of a typewriter, I found rather annoying and distracting. Atonement is not a bad movie, it's just a little epic in it's scope for it's own good and the rigid three act structure it uses will no doubt turn some viewers off. Director Joe Wright's talents shine through the film though and it's hard to imagine anyone making the film as well as he has visually but more time was needed in the editing room to piece this one together into a film that doesn't fall down because of it's pacing and one that truly satisfies. In the end, the film confuses who the main character is and the back and forth narrative change doesn't help us get close to who we should be one bit. Although McAvoy gets the most screentime, his character is mainly vacant in many of the film's most important scenes and therefore detached, which is because the movie is Briony's story... although I think Joe Wright forgot about that and did her character and ultimately his film a grave injustice. Moments of brilliance and a fine second movie from Joe Wright but the film is bogged down by it's sentimentality and often by it's attempts to give us too much. Atonement is never a film that really satisfies and despite some decent performances from all involved, although a firm decision of who's tale the story is from was needed from Wright because the film is ultimately great to look at but a little detached emotionally.