The Best British Film of 2007

Rating: 9/10 (17 March 2008)

Winner of the 2007 BAFTA and Golden Globe for Best Film, 'Atonement' has an opening 45 minutes which recalls the 'The Go-Between' - a hot English summer and lust between the lower and upper classes. Robbie (James McAvoy) is the gardener and Cecilia (Kiera Knightley) is the daughter of the household. A grabbed moment of lust in the library is witnessed by Cecilia's 13-year old sister Briony (Saorise Ronan) and, when another young girl is molested, Briony falsely accuses Robbie. At this point the film becomes an essay on the beastliness of the English upper classes - particularly Benedict Cumberbatch's total cad - and there is a sadness that prevails throughout the story of Robbie and Cecilia's ruined lives.
Robbie goes to prison and is released in 1940 to fight with the British Expeditory Force in France. He and Cecilia have one more meeting over tea.
In lesser hands, the story could have been clunky and dated - but Joe Wright has a young, cinematic eye and he's helped by one of the best adaptors of difficult material in the business (Christopher Hampton). There's a terrific sequence set on the beach at Dunkirk, with the stranded British army waiting for evacuation that's a triumph of Steadicam operation, music score and Sarah Greenwood's production design, which suggests an army defeated and disorganised - there's everything from an abandoned boat to a funfair on the beach. The sequence - all a single tracking shot following Robbie - is astonishingly moving.
Back in London, Briony (now 18 and played by Romola Garari) becomes a nurse and is haunted by her dishonesty. And herein is the film's only flaw: the penultimate scene of Briony visiting Robbie and Cecilia and seeking a chance to make amends for what she's done. It turns out to be the invention of the adult Briony (Vanessa Redgrave), a chapter in her final novel. The real Robbie and Cecilia had died in 1940 and this is the only way she could she could gain atonement for what she's done. But it's an implausible ending that sabotages the finale - like a "It was all dream" revelation or a false flashback.
Nevertheless, a sterling film, impeccably acted by every member of the cast and one that demands and rewards more than one viewing.