A good story of injustice unredeemed

Rating: 7/10 (19 November 2015)

"Atonement" is a movie based on a 2001 novel of the same title by British author Ian McEwan. The book and film have three parts, or they wind three stories into one. First, and no doubt the film's big attraction, is a love story. Second, it has a very well done war segment. Third, it is a story about a lie, a grave injustice because of it, and the tragic result in the lives of several people. This last is the wrapping that bundles the three together.
One synopsis of the book says it is about "understanding and responding to the need for personal atonement." It is that, indeed. And, it shows what happens when one doesn't atone.
At 13 years of age, Briony Tallis has a crush on Robbie Turner, the son of the Tallis family's longtime faithful housekeeper. Robbie is treated almost like a son in the Tallis family. He grows up close to Briony's older sister, Cecilia. Briony sees Robbie and Cecilia together in a very seductive scene at the large fountain pool. She later sees them together in the library. Some viewers think that she misinterprets this scene as Robbie raping Cecilia. I rather think it's a clear case of jealousy. Some earlier scenes of Robbie scolding her and not paying attention to her bear this out.
Later, the young twins in the Tallis home disappear, and everyone goes looking for them. Briony stumbles onto a scene in which her brother's friend, Paul Marshall, is making love to her cousin Lola. Marshall and Lola had been making eyes at one another since he arrived. Briony runs back to the house and reports that she saw Robbie "molesting" Cousin Lola. She lies to get even with Robbie, who no longer pays much attention to her and who is in love with her sister. In the film the family seems all too willing to accuse Robbie and not doubt or question Briony. They didn't ask Lola who it was. Robbie returns a short time later having found the twins himself and with one riding on his shoulders. The Family knows that Briony has a vivid imagination in her story telling. Yet they accept Robbie's guilt without question, based on her accusation. This isn't very believable in the film.
The truth doesn't come out in a trial, which the movie skips over. Briony would have to have lied again in testimony for the trial. Robbie is found guilty and sent to prison. Now the story begins to take on tones of Briony having regrets over her lie. Her conscience bothers her. She can't deny her guilt, or what happens as a result of her lie. But will she make atonement?
As time goes on, Cecilia splits with the family, Robbie is released from prison to fight in World War II, and Briony takes up nursing instead of going to Cambridge. Robbie dies of wounds while waiting to be evacuated at Dunkirk; and Cecilia is killed in a London subway station when German bombs fall on it. We see other scenes as flashbacks of Robbie and Cecilia and Briony. But these aren't real. Briony has made them up as a way to cope with her guilt.
The last scene is decades later. Robbie's mother and all the other Tallis people have died. Only Briony is left and she's now a famous novelist. At this point, Vanessa Redgrave plays the 77-year-old Briony. She is going on television to explain her latest book. It's a fictional story she made up about Robbie and Cecilia getting back together. In her TV interview, she tells about her lie about Robbie and its tragic results.
Briony lives all of her life with the wrong she has done on her mind, yet she has been unwilling to atone. Why? Atonement means to make amends or reparation to one harmed. That might be humiliating, and it's certainly humbling. But it's necessary for a clear conscience and peace of mind. She didn't make amends to Robbie and Cecilia while they were alive, and she could have at any time over those early years. She didn't atone after their deaths, while Robbie's mother and her own parents were still living. She could have cleared Robbie in their minds and hearts. Again, she had many more years in which to do that. But it would have been humiliating to her. So, she waited, and waited, until she was past atonement and humiliation with those affected.
One suspects that Briony was sorry more for her own suffering than for that of all the others she affected. She certainly wasn't atoning – because it was long after being able to make amends to those she hurt. Had she announced that all of her profits and/or her estate would go to help broken families or some other justice cause or worthy charity, it would be a different story. She might have had a statue made of Robbie as a wrongly- accused victim who gave his life for his country. But, there was none of that. Just her word that she hoped her book at this late time in life might bring peace to Robbie and Cecilia – who have passed into eternity.
Briony knew she was far too late to make any atonement. And although positing that she is honoring their memory by her fictitious book, she glumly realizes that her lie will be in her memory and on her conscience to the end of her life. Vanessa Redgrave's face in the last scene longs for peace when she will no longer have to live with her lie. For more on this, I recommend the 2008 documentary, "Bringing the Past to Life; The Making of 'Atonement.'"