Atonement: All In The Mind

Rating: 10/10 (31 January 2008)

Unrequited love: how torturous. Your feelings for another are never returned. At best, they simply ignore you. At worst, they mercilessly take advantage of you by accepting your gifts and attention, then brandishing their new partner(s). Slowly, your love painfully dies, and you only wish they would atone for their behavior.
The movie Atonement grasps this process. But your impression of its subject matter differs if you've seen previews luring you into witnessing a couple's passionate affair ruined by a jealous lover. You may also have heard about the "Hitchcockian" ending turning everything upside down.
Precisely the point: the plot is all in the mind. And this critical element, hinted at the film's opening, is missed both by those walking in late, and by the seated ones prejudiced from the trailers. You see, it immediately becomes clear that the entire movie will be the product of the central character, Briony, who initially is 13 years old. A different actress plays her at age 18, then she's portrayed at 77 by the superb Vanessa Redgrave. Briony writes fiction and thus is acutely aware how reality and fantasy sometimes merge. One must watch events through her eyes to properly understand the motives and consequences of the sexual gratification between older sister Cecilia and the housekeeper's son, Robbie, for whom Briony has a crush.
Though having called Briony his pal, Robbie bluntly uses her to deliver a letter to Cecilia. When C & R get around to doing it, it's in the house library, and they know full well that Briony could enter at any second as in fact occurs. C'mon, this liaison is pure lust in front of a minor, and at that moment, I absolved Briony for whatever she subsequently did, including erroneously testifying that Robbie later raped her cousin, also a minor. The atonement Briony endures for having Robbie convicted of the wrong crime is belied by the film concentrating half its length on Robbie suffering in World War II combat. Indeed, he is the one who needed to atone for his sin.
Leaving for duty, Robbie has a brief meeting with Cecilia as she awaits a bus on a London street. Acknowledging his discomfort with their library encounter, he's uncertain what he felt with her or if a loving relationship could ever develop. During the war, when he becomes very ill, his soldier buddy tenderly strokes his forehead. Ironically, from this man, Robbie receives the heartfelt love totally absent from his making love with Cecilia.
In several places we observe a scene performed twice with different interpretations. That's because of Briony's alternate takes. After all, don't you sometimes think you were crazy for loving someone who treated you as worthless, or imagine they rejected you as a lovesick fool and expected your atonement for wasting their time? Of course, all along they actually did whatever they pleased, and as they continue to prosper, you are left alone with your abject thoughts.
The Bible tells us that God does not forgive the unrepentant. We're trying to be more than Divine if we attempt to do so. Instead, identify with a young girl, Briony, who spends the rest of her life creatively dealing with the callousness of others. Perhaps, all in your mind, you will find from those having hurt you, atonement in Atonement.
Peace.