A Disappointing And Dispiriting Adaptation, Only Worthwhile As A Brit Calling Card to Hollywood And Oscar

Rating: Null/10 (3 October 2007)

Atonement seems more natural a subject for a novel, rather than a film, as it concerns writing and its momentous consequences, be it a note, a letter or a novel. Moreover, Atonement has a writer at its centre, and is therefore at an even greater disadvantage for film-making, as the craft of writing is laborious and involves little physical action. It is essentially a solitary, even obsessive, occupation, and so doesn't lend itself to the active demands of a film. But it may be argued that a clever, imaginative film would find some way round this.
Unfortunately, Atonement is not a clever film. Instead, its makers seem to have been rather complacent and smugly thought that the film would sell on the back of the alluring parts of the novel, in other words a lavish country house in high summer where there is upstairs-downstairs class antagonism and illicit sex scandals, and later a shift to a harsh wartime romance. The filmmakers seem to have thought that this would suffice. However, stretched over two hours, the film seems rather thin, even threadbare.
The characters in the novel have unusual depth and subtlety. While this has been retained, to an extent, in this adaptation, on screen they seem unreal, lifeless. And with the exception of the three excellent actresses who play Briony at different ages, the (no more than) competent acting complements the competent, but still lacking, characterisation.
Christopher Hampton, who usually engages as a writer and director, has written a disappointing script which loses the charged, sweltering promise of its first act (which would actually have made a much better short film) and gives way to a staid middle act which relies on wartime sentimentality and tries far too hard to elicit pathos in the viewer.
Joe Wright seems content to direct Atonement as a calling card to Hollywood and Oscar, his highpoint being the long scene showing the Dunkirk evacuation, which is technically accomplished and stunning, but also wearying and approaching banality as this kind of thing has been done as well so many times before. The film's denouement seems tacked on to provide a smart-looking, post modern ending.
Atonement is a disappointing and dispiriting adaptation of a clever, intriguing novel.