the Romance that never was ...

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 2008)

It all begins as country-house intrigue with a touch of THE GO-BETWEEN, crucial letters being passed and a confused child gradually overwhelmed by adult carryings-on. Young Briony's initial misunderstanding of an exchange between big sister Cecilia and the housekeeper's son Robbie seems a valid premise but when Robbie gets his letters mixed-up it sounds a warning note that things might not proceed as subtly as hoped for. And so it proves. Briony's shock-horror observations start piling up quicker than corpses in a Christie - sex in the library between Cee and Robbie (high-toned and balletic), another handy letter, the search for the runaway boys, sex in the woods (dirty and grubby) between a pervy guest and Briony's underage cousin - and before you can say Gregory Peck in SPELLBOUND -which also leapfrogged over a trial very glibly - Robbie the working-class scapegoat is banged up in the slammer for rape on the fevered say-so of Briony who'd previously idolised him. The left-wing playwright Lillian Hellman had employed a similar device in THE CHILDREN'S HOUR, dodging the finer details of an enquiry in order to pour coals on the head of her chosen target, the wealthy old lady who'd dared to believe her grand-daughter's story. Human understanding goes out the window when a class-warrior's on the march. Briony here is as much a victim of circumstance - or melodrama - as the hapless Robbie but the film affords her no sympathy then or later. She was only a kid for God's sake - but a Child of Her Class, nuff said. It's tempting to imagine that if Robbie had been a true-born son of the house the film might never have been made. It's also tempting to consider that if he had been a true gent he might have acted less like a chump earlier on - maybe, maybe not. Anyway the family freezes him out on Briony's evidence except for Cee whose (literally) one-night stand has blossomed into True Love.
Extending the Selznick analogy we broaden scale into A FAREWELL TO ARMS one World War down the line. Cee is now a comely nurse in 1940 London and Robbie's a reluctant soldier, released from prison to join the Army. After a pained parting modelled a little too clearly on BRIEF ENCOUNTER Robbie's sent to France where he's caught up in the retreat from Dunkirk. Trudging across country to the beach he has a neat chest-wound and two companions, the regulation bolshie cockney and a large mysterious black corporal with his head bandaged who seems to have been parachuted in via the Twilight Zone from some Regiment of Political Correctness, Rainbow Division. The big beach-scene - much acclaimed - is the Selznick-type set-piece, a technically accomplished interweaving of impressionist elements, singing Tommies, horses being shot (simulated, thankfully), the crowds awaiting evacuation. The inevitable Brenda Blethyn turns up later on in a dream-moment as Robbie's mum who bathes his feet (prior to his Crucifixion ?). Back in London the adult Briony, also a nurse, is introduced in a hospital scene rather like Maria with the nuns in THE SOUND OF MUSIC. We almost expect a number or two but no such luck. She wanders around in a daze seeking redemption after gradually realising She Got It All Wrong through a series of Amazing Coincidences involving some faked-up newsreel footage that are totally unbelievable and the film's clearest indication that it's headed for a defeat that, unlike Dunkirk, won't turn into victory. She pays a visit to the reunited lovers begging forgiveness. Robbie gives her a blistering lecture and sends her off again to Put It All Right.
Another left-wing heavyweight Vanessa Redgrave is enlisted at the end to 'apologise for slavery' so to speak, depicting Briony as finally a cracked and dying old best-selling novelist disclosing in a television interview before the shock-horrified nation, presumably, that the confrontation we'd just seen in the film never took place. Robbie had died from his wound in France and Cee had been killed in a gas explosion on the Underground (suitably spectacular as this is a Big Film don't forget). Briony will Put It All Right by telling their story in her final novel and giving it a 'happy ending'. Ingmar Bergman would have had a field-day with all this narrative-trickery and writer's angst. Unfortunately Joe Wright and his unlucky screenwriter can only adopt a relatively head-on approach in keeping with the nature of the production. (Ingmar didn't do the Odeon). Ironically a tad more of the Selznick spirit might have salvaged the cottage-by-the-sea. Old Hollywood was fond of Ghostly Lovers, David O. certainly was. His adored Jennifer played a ghost in PORTRAIT OF JENNIE and even Pearl Chavez in DUEL IN THE SUN was 're-born' as a desert-flower. Perhaps the real problem here is that the lovers don't register strongly enough in life to become potent symbols of an after-death. They remain Briony's creatures. Maybe they always were...