From a 50+ perspective: Thumbs Up

Rating: 8/10 (19 August 2008)

This was one of those movies that we were sorely tempted to eject 30 minutes into the viewing - and are very glad we didn't. It turned out to be the rare film that made you think and seriously analyze what you have seen; so much so that my wife is now reading the book to see how faithful the movie was to the novel.
It was certainly not without flaws, so let's get the major of those out of the way right up front: 1. The setting that was chosen (England prior to and during WWII) to construct the central transgression and link the dual message was just too easy and convenient, and the screenwriters even played with the time frame a bit to make it just that much easier. We felt this was a bit lazy.
2. The inconsistency in the methods used to shift back and forth in time was disconcerting and smacked of self-satisfied gimmickry. Some time shifts were labeled as such, some were not, some reran a just viewed scene from a different perspective, most did not. It just became too clever and ultimately annoying.
Now down to the stuff that raised the movie above its flaws: The film asks - and answers - dual but closely related questions: (a) Can the artist atone for his/her transgressions through his/her artistry? and (b) Can society atone for the atrocity and horror of war by writing history to reflect on war's heroes and victories? The answer in both cases is clearly No, and the film does a very good job of illustrating why.
Briony destroys at least five lives (hers, her sister's, her cousin's, Robbie's, and his mother's) with a petulant, adolescent false witness - and spends most of the rest of her life trying to find a way to atone for her transgression. Her narcissism prevents her from summoning the wherewithal to face and attempt to undo the wrong directly, and time and dreadful circumstance quickly rob her of any opportunity to do so. By the end of the movie we find that she has written a novel in which the people she destroyed are blessed with a happy-ever-after fictional existence - and she has even been able to come out of herself far enough to expose the fiction and face her responsibility.
As the events of the central characters' lives unfold, we see a reflection of the primary conflict in the circumstances of the war raging around them. We are shown the foul atrocity that is the reality of war, then at war's end we are presented not with the images of the dead, the maimed, the maddened or even the ravaged earth, but instead offered the weary but smiling, victorious heroes arriving home. This is the atonement for war. But it doesn't work for us, because we have been there with Robbie and we know what he was subject to was so horrible as to preclude atonement.
And so it is also for Briony. Her rewriting of her own history cannot atone for what she has done. We can also realize that her entire life has been an incarnation of Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, wherein the only thing that has enabled her to continue living has been her fear - given her horrible transgression - of what may lay beyond.
Very special mention must be made of Vanessa Redgrave's short but incredible performance. While doing her brief monologue as the now aged Briony, she says with her eyes more than all the other characters in the film combined. While she calmly and quietly lays out the basis of her last novel - and the fact that it does not reflect reality - her eyes plead with us for forgiveness. She is facing death. She is afraid. She wants more than anything in the world to hear someone say, "We forgive you." But the desperation in her eyes lets us know that she is fully aware that the only people who could rightfully say that to her are long dead. It is an extremely powerful moment.
Despite its flaws and the fact that the movie's central questions have all too obvious answers, there is enough artistry and power in this film that we would highly recommend it.