A Magically Crafted Film

Rating: 10/10 (20 May 2008)

As a lifelong admirer of movies, I have come to believe that everyone has a cinematic sense, the way they would envision of a film of their own. Atonement beautifies my own cinematic sense, thus I relate so intensely to director Joe Wright's techniques. Though he admits to his beautiful, emotional, near logistically impossible tracking shot that entirely composes the powerful Dunkirk evacuation sequence as showing off, that doesn't matter, because the impression with which it furnishes us is that of an uninterrupted perspective, not James McAvoy's but ours as we behold the juxtaposition of what he is ceaselessly seeing and his reaction to it. Each scene is its own self-contained short film, almost as if Kurosawa had directed this film. Kurosawa was never as hyperkinetic or confronting as Wright, the visual language of Atonement has the same tautness and precision serving as genesis of an emotional response as Sanjuro, Seven Samurai, or One Wonderful Sunday.
Wright's meticulous stylization is thorough and consistent, as it isn't simply lathered on top of the story but is essentially the storyteller, enhancing and driving the story, segregating itself as its own version of Ian McEwan's novel, rather than simply a novel told on film. Each scene flows seamlessly into the next, a tremendous credit that goes to the editing as well as the already honored cinematography, creating an amalgam of each character's point of view of the same events, their different reactions, our own reactions, the achingly longed-for fantasies the characters attempt to will into reality, and of course reality itself.
Keira Knightley and McAvoy are airtight within the feelings and personal interpretations of an upper-English student and the son of her parents' housekeeper sharing an obstructed and undying love and animal attraction, however it is Saoirse Ronan, the young girl who plays the 13-year-old version of Knightley's avidly creative younger sister, portraying a stage in the younger sister's life that has yet to realize the overwhelming regret she will endure. It's Vanessa Redgrave's portrayal of her in the final stage of her life that almost magically reflects Ronan, something you cannot just plan.
Despite recent achievements in American film that have shattered standards and transcended the capabilities of each aspect of the medium, Atonement outdoes in both departments. It's hard to bring to mind the last time I saw a movie so alive in all departments. I was even fascinated with the way people smoked in the film. Even the music goes beyond the expectations of even masterfully done films, as it takes the form of the uniform sounds recognized in the characters' lives, masking itself as the many-sensed rhythm of the story.
2007 is a tremendous year for American movies, one of the best in its history. It would only be right for Atonement to receive the praise, recognition, and accolades with which other masterpieces of 2007 are awash.