Heart-wrenching, beautifully acted and directed

Rating: 10/10 (24 January 2009)

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)
POSSIBLE SPOILERS.
There is little I can add to the myriad critics and viewers who have seen this beautifully rendered work of art from the novel by Ian McEwan. But I want to point to the commanding performance by Vanessa Redgrave at the end in which she tells us what has happened. She absolutely commands the screen and engages us in such a direct way that we are enthralled and touched. From an artistic point of view it is interesting that the words she speaks need no embellishment or any acting out. There are so perfect and her delivery is beyond professional. It is lived, as is the case with all great acting.
I also was very much taken with the performance of Romola Garai who played Briony at 18. Her face conveyed more than words can tell. She felt so deeply not just her character's great sin, but the tragedy of the war and the dying she saw all around her and the sense that she could not be forgiven. Saoirse Ronan, who played Briony as a girl had a hard edge, almost an evil edge to her that was perfect for the part, a kind of "bad seed" depiction with her washed out face and small self-importance and her inability to not just understand what she saw and experienced, but her inability to understand herself and to love instead of desiring only to be loved.
The way the story is presented with scenes out of chronological order but in psychological and emotional order was most effective. I was especially impressed with the idea of showing us the scene where Briony pretends to drown and is saved by Robbie after the fact of the great lie she tells. As presented we immediately understand why she lied. His anger and failure to understand her childish love for him perhaps worked like the Achilles heel of his character. Had he been able to love her as one might love a child and help her to understand that he could not love her otherwise, everything might have been different. Or perhaps not. In a sense hers was an act of atonement, although not in a positive sense.
The epic scenes of the beginning of World War II with the British in retreat and all the bloodshed and waste of war magnified and accentuated, especially the scene with Briony and the dying French soldier Luc, made us understand the how precious life was for those who witnessed this while serving as a dramatic and psychological foil for the love and life that Cecilia and Robbie could not experience.
I also like the economy with which the essential details of the story were presented. We see the dramatic scenes and then we understand with just a few words or even a look what actually happened. For example when Briony as a nurse attends the wedding of Lola and Paul and as the bride and groom walk away we see the shame in their faces, the same shame that Briony feels, only they are not going to own up to it, we know. And then there is the quick flashback to the scene that Briony as a girl had witnessed and this time her mind allows her to see the man's face. And then a bit later on in the scene that the author inside the author (Briony) makes up, we understand that there will be no revelation of the truth because a spouse cannot testify against a spouse, or at least in this case would not.
And then there is the brilliant ending with Vanessa Redgrave summing it up and tying it all together--but more than that, showing us how Briony grew as she went from childhood to old age. In fact the emotional and human transformation that takes place in Briony's character is perhaps the central point of the story. I haven't read the novel by Ian McEwan but I am familiar with his work and know he must have been responsible for such a psychologically compelling development and ending--although it is obvious that the script by Christopher Hampton and the direction by Joe Wright are more than first rate.