a rave review from someone who DIDN'T like the novel

Rating: 10/10 (14 January 2008)

"Atonement" turns out to be a much better movie than it is a book. But before I explain what I mean by that, a little background on the story may be in order.
Ian McEwan's novel - which spans eight decades, from the 1930's to the present day - centers around Briony Tallis, a precocious 13-year-old who lives with her family on a country estate in England. Briony is an imaginative child who revels in a world of fantasy and make-believe, a writer of stories and plays who is actually less equipped to interpret the realities of the adult world than she gives herself credit for. One unusually hot summer day in 1935, Briony witnesses a series of events involving her older sister, Cecilia, and the caretaker's son, Robbie, that her child's mind misinterprets in a way that leads to tragic consequences for all involved. Her choosing to act on what she believes to be true winds up echoing down the corridors of time, through World War II and beyond. As time passes and Briony grows to adulthood, she comes to see the error of her ways and spends the rest of her life trying to find a way to atone for what she has done. The coup de grace is that, due to circumstances beyond her control, Briony is forced to achieve her redemption in the only way she knows how - as a writer.
At the risk of offending devotees of the novel, I must confess to being somewhat less than enamored with a book that many seem to rank among their all-time favorites. For despite its sometimes impressive dreamlike quality, the novel is too contrived and self-conscious to make the reader anything more than a mere dispassionate observer of the events it is portraying. As a writer, McEwan has an undeniable flair for narrative voice and description, but it frequently comes at the expense of characterization and story. His plotting is often arbitrary and clumsy, and his dialogue, when indeed he deigns to use any, is almost always stilted and unconvincing (I have to admit to laughing and rolling my eyes when I was reading the crucial letter-swapping scene).
Yet, something has gone terribly right with the material in its journey from the printed page to the silver screen (suffice it to say, I didn't roll my eyes this time around). Since film is a largely visual medium, screenwriter Christopher Hampton and director Joe Wright are able to convey through images what it takes McEwan endless reams of paper to get across. Here, an idea can be suggested through a simple shrug of the shoulders, a meaningful turn of the head, a barely noticeable gesture or wave of the hand. And, indeed, the movie is rich in beautiful and unforgettable images that evoke a feeling, a time, a place, sometimes even an entire theme, all on their own. Even though the screenplay remains faithful to the three-act structure of the piece, that structure comes across as less fragmented, less arbitrary and less self-conscious than it does in the novel. Thanks to the seamless fluidity of Seamus McGarvey's stunning cinematography and the unifying tones of Dario Marianelli's brilliant musical score, everything in the film version of "Atonement" feels perfectly integrated and all of a piece.
Of the performers, only Keira Knightley is in any way problematic. She looks positively gorgeous as the seductive Cecilia, and there are moments when she achieves the proper mixture of tenderness and haughtiness essential to the character. But she has a tendency to spit out her lines in a much too rapid fashion and her tight-lipped poutiness (a problem, too, in "Pride and Prejudice") eventually becomes annoying and distracting. As Robbie, James McAvoy proves again why he is one of his generation's most exciting screen talents, while young Saoirse Ronan is remarkably poignant and poised as the 13-year-old Briony. Ramola Garai and veteran actress Vanessa Redgrave do nicely as Briony in later stages of her life (although the ending, while moving, is a bit more reminiscent of "Titanic" than it needs to be).
Wright is often at his best when turning what could have been mere technical "stunts" into integral pieces of the drama: a beautifully realized, five-and-a-half-minute long tracking shot of the carnage at Dunkirk, the effortless incorporation of a clicking typewriter into the musical score, a row of nurses marching in time to the rhythmic clacking. Through sight and sound, Wright creates a surrealistic, dreamlike tone, perfectly appropriate to the material at hand. What's amazing is that, even with all these stylistic flourishes, Wright never loses sight of the human drama at the story's core. In his direction, he displays an astonishing economy of means, moving the story along at an almost breakneck speed yet never allowing the movie to feel telescoped or rushed. Not only does his pacing not sacrifice the emotional resonance of the piece; it greatly enhances it.
"Atonement" ends on a lyrical note of melancholic uplift that leaves audiences wrung out and emotionally exhausted, as Briony engages in her final and greatest act of storytelling creativity. Watching the movie "Atonement" is nothing short of a rapturous experience.