An almost flawless, visually arresting film (my review)

Rating: 9/10 (19 February 2008)

When I read Ian McEwan's masterful novel, Atonement, upon its release, a film adaptation seemed unfathomable. McEwan's metafictional, multifaceted novel is a tour de force of (what I believed to be) inimitable depth. Here, screenwriter Christopher Hampton and director Joe Wright turn McEwan's novel into an epic beauty with powerful acting, visual complexity and a story that is gracefully paced until rewarding its audience with an ending of moral consequence that many films often fail to deliver.
The film opens with young Briony Tallis, typing away at her typewriter a play named, The Trials of Arabella. At age 13, Briony has the mind, perseverance and imagination to become a successful writer. The film does not convey her peculiarities about writing in the same, playfully elegant way the novel does, but it still conveys her obsession and willpower. However, as her superficial play endeavors fall apart, the plot takes a turn. Briony is a witness to four key events that change the life of the story.
As Briony is in distress about her unsuccessful play, she looks out the window and catches her sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) stripping down to her undergarments. Staring at her is Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), the son of Briony's family's housekeeper. Briony is baffled and looks away for a second. This is the first of four reasons for Briony's imagination to run wild and believe that Robbie Turner is a sexual fanatic.
The second event is a mistake on Robbie's behalf: a note, written out of frustration for expressing his feelings about Cecilia is giving to Briony to give to Cecilia. It is too late when Robbie realizes that he handed Briony the frustration note, not the final draft. Third: a scene in the study convinces Briony that Robbie is a sex maniac. The final event is one of the crucial events of the story, and it is crucial to the theme of "Atonement."
While Wright shows both Briony's perspective and Robbie and Cecilia's to show the audience the different perspectives, it is easy to empathize with the young, imaginative Briony. Briony believes she is witnessing inappropriate sexuality, while Robbie and Cecilia are simple exploring their sexual curiosities. At first, it seems easy to assume that Briony is an evil girl, but she is simply an adolescent full of curiosity and a bit of frustration. Although Briony is the cause of dreadful things, she is not a despicable character by any means.
"Atonement" is the type of film that could have easily been an overdone love story, but Wright turns Hampton's strong script into a story of love, war and loss. This film works on many levels, including: great acting, a great score by Dario Marianelli and flawless directing with one of the most unforgettable tracking shots in recent film history.
In the final sequence of the film, we meet Briony again, now much older, and promoting what is said to be her final novel, entitled Atonement. The audience learns what happened (or what could have happened) to Robbie Turner and Cecilia Tallis from the mind of the atoning novelist, Briony Tallis. The story told through Briony's character is a heartbreaking saga of the only thing she felt she could do to give herself the atonement and piece of mind she desperately needed.