ATONEMENT and the Power of Love and Lies

Rating: 8/10 (8 February 2008)

With the sweep of an epic and the intimacy of romance, Atonement comes across as a pretty good piece of period film-making until its devastating truths elevate the film to even greater heights. Joe Wright, who is becoming the torchbearer to period filmmakers, Ivory and Merchant (Room with a View), has been down this path before with his terrific Pride and Prejudice.
It is 1935 at a wealthy estate in England where two sisters contemplate life. The older sister, Cecilia (Keira Knightley), is at odds with the housekeeper's grown son, Robbie (James McAvoy). The younger sister, Briony (Saoirse Ronan), is an impressionable teen and budding writer. Cecilia's brother, Leon, arrives with a male friend, Paul, who takes keen interest in some children staying at the home. One evening, a passion erupts between Cecilia and Robbie that is interrupted by Briony. Later that night a girl is brutally assaulted by an unknown assailant. The subsequent allegations will have tragic consequences. The story shifts between London where Cecilia is a nurse and Dunkirk where Robbie fights to survive the early stages of World War II. The couple struggle to be reunited from afar even as a maturing Briony comes to terms with her past deeds. It is only later in life that she faces her guilt by paying tribute to the undying love of a tragic couple.
Atonement sets out to be an ambitious undertaking of love corrupted by outside forces and those from within as it spans the decades. It shows how mere words can hurt in ways that cannot be imagined. In this, the plot is not dissimilar to The Children's Hour where a child's words hurt deeply. The story focuses less about the horror and effects of war, and more on the purging and cleansing of sins. Briony chooses to deal with her misrepresentations and redeems herself with a final act of poetic justice (think Titanic), even if it takes a lifetime.
The film suffers a bit from confusing points of view as seen through the eyes of Briony by replaying the same scene to depict her point of view. What remains somewhat unclear are her motives. Is she jealous of the love between Cecilia and Robbie or is she making wild assumptions based on distortions?
The acting is quite good with teen Saoirse Ronan a standout as Briony. In fact, all three actresses who play Briony at various stages of life are a splendid tandem (much like the tandems in Shine or TV's Life with Judy Garland).
Almost functioning as a Greek tragedy, the film most people will compare this to is The English Patient, which is ironic because there is a scene that has a television interviewer played by Patient's director, Anthony Minghella! Atonement benefits from some good cinematography (Seamus McGarvey), which depicts some startling, surreal imagery especially in a tracking shot that says all that need be said of the horrifying evacuation of British troops at Dunkirk. The editing flashes back and forth to make a point or give background, and yet you wonder what is real or imagined. The musical score (Dano Marianelli) is in keeping with the dramatic mood quite nicely.
By the finale, we get to have an ending of sorts. Is it reality or the fabrication of an author's guilt-ridden imagination? One thing is for sure: the feelings of longing and love are real. Atonement is like reading an epic romance novel with a bit of Jane Austen thrown in for good measure. As such, it's pretty compelling.