Atonement

Plot synopsis:
In England in 1935, precocious 13-year-old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) lives on her family's country estate with her mother and sister, Cecilia (Keira Knightley). Cecilia is home for the summer from Cambrige where she has been studying with the housekeeper's son, Robbie (James McAvoy). She and Robbie have an uncertain relationship; neither is willing to act on it but a certain romantic chemistry exists between them. One day, Briony sees from her bedroom window an argument between Cecilia and Robbie at the fountain. Robbie accidentally broke an antique vase and a piece of it fell into the fountain. Angrily, Cecilia stripped to her underwear and dived into the fountain to retrieve it. Briony is confused about the sexual tension between the two of them.The Tallises are being visited by young relatives from the north -- the twins Pierrot and Jackson (Felix and Charlie von Simson) and their 15-year-old sister, Lola (Juno Temple), whose parents are in the process of divorcing. Leon Tallis (Patrick Kennedy) brings his friend Paul (Benedict Cumberbatch) for dinner. Paul keenly follows Hitler's political advance and predicts war. He plans to sell chocolate bars to the British military to give to its soldiers. While he tries to amuse Pierrot and Jackson, Paul and Lola flirt.Embarrassed by his behavior earlier in the day, Robbie tries to write an apology note to Cecilia. One of the drafts includes a sexually charged declaration of his love for her. He then writes a more formal apology he intends to deliver to her. However, he accidentally gives the sexual note to Briony while walking to dinner at the Tallises that night; he gives her the note because he believes it will be less embarrassing if it comes from Briony instead of him. When he realizes what he has done, he calls out to Briony but she is too far away to hear him. Back in the house, she reads the note and is scandalized. She gives the note to Cecilia but later confides to Lola that she believes Robbie is a dangerous sex maniac. Lola has come to her with arm bruises that she accuses her twin brothers of giving to her but Briony ignores them.Robbie arrives for dinner. He and Cecilia discuss the note and admit their love for one another. They make passionate love in the library but are discovered by Briony. At dinner, it is discovered that Pierrot and Jackson have run away. Everyone looks for them. While looking for them by a creek, Briony stumbles on Lola being raped by someone. He runs away into the darkness. Briony insists to first Lola and then the police that Robbie was the culprit and brandishes the sexual letter to Cecilia as evidence. Only Cecilia protests his innocence. When Robbie returns with the twins, he is arrested for rape. Tried and convicted, he is sent to prison. Four years later he is released into the British army and makes up part of the British Expeditionary Force that is sent to northern France in an attempt to halt the Nazi advance.In northern France, Robbie and two fellow soldiers attempt to make their way to Dunkirk, where the remnants of the BEF are to be evacuated after the Nazis rout their forces and the French. He has a shrapnel wound in his chest. Several weeks earlier, before he left London, he saw Cecilia again. She remained true to him for four years and begs him to come back to her. She reveals that she has broken contact with her family over her love for Robbie and belief in his innocence. She gives him a photograph of a seaside cottage near Dover that they can retire to. It will give him strength as he struggles towards Dunkirk. Cecilia is a nurse in London. She learns that Briony, now 18 (Romola Garai) has decided not to study at Cambridge and is training to be a nurse herself. Briony knows that Robbie did not rape Lola, that it was Paul -- to whom Lola is now engaged and who has become a millionaire selling his candy to the British army. Briony goes to see Cecilia to admit her guilt and state her willingness to do whatever it takes to atone for her sins and clear Robbie's name. Robbie is in Cecilia's apartment when she gets there. Although they are angry with her, they tell her what she needs to do to make things right. She agrees, then leaves as Cecilia and Robbie are intimate for one last time before he is shipped to France with the BEF.In 1999, Briony (Vanessa Redgrave), now in her late seventies and dying of vascular dementia, is a famous novelist. Her new book, __Atonement__, will be published on her birthday. The foregoing narrative had been one she created for her book, as an act of atonement for what she did to Robbie and Cecilia. In real life, she never saw Cecilia after she left the family, and Cecilia and Robbie never had a last tender moment in her apartment before he left with the BEF. Instead, he died at Dunkirk of septicemia, waiting to be evacuated. Cecilia died a few months later when a German bomb burst a water main and flooded the subway tunnel in which she and other Londoners had taken refuge during the Blitz. Briony hopes that, by reuniting them, she gives them the happy conclusion to their lives that they deserved and her readers the hope that everyone needs to survive.Robbie and Cecilia walk down the beach on a bright, beautiful day. On the steps of the seaside cottage, they look at the beautiful white cliffs, then disappear inside.********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************THE FOLLOWING IS NOT COMPOSED BY ME. THIS APPEARS IN ONE OF THE MOVIE SPOILER WEBSITES AND IS WRITTEN BY SOMEONE CALLED 'D Schwarz'. ITS SO DESCRIPTIVE AND FANTASTIC THAT I DECIDED TO SHARE IT WITH OTHER IMDB USERS. THE TEXT HAS NOT BEEN CHANGED IN ANY WAY AND APPEARS EXACTLY AS WRITTEN BY THE ORIGINAL WRITER. ************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************The film starts out with a 13 year old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) writing a play that she wants to put on that evening for the return of her older brother Leon. She runs through the house and into the garden and finds twenty-something year old Robbie Turner the housekeeper's son (James McAvoy) as he is tending to the flowers. They exchange conversation and it's clear that she has a crush on him but he regards her as a little sister. We then see Briony's mother reading the play and loving it.The next scene shows Briony lying on the garden with her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley). Briony asks Cecilia why she doesn't talk to Robbie anymore, Cecilia says she does, they just move in different circles. Then we see Briony rehearsing the play with her cousins, Pierrot and Jackson Quincy and their older sister Lola (Juno Temple). Lola is about 16 or so. The younger boys quickly get bored with the play and go off for a swim and Briony is left alone in the house. She is looking out the window and sees Cecilia and Robbie out by the fountain in some sort of argument. Then we see Cecilia strip down to her slip and jump into the fountain to retrieve something and she comes out and her slip is wet and sheer and Robbie looks away as she dresses and leaves. We suddenly see the same scene from the point of view of Cecilia and Robbie, as they are talking while walking into the garden, Cecilia is holding an expensive vase and as she tried to fill it with water from the fountain, Robbie tried to take it from her to fill it and she refuses and they pull on it, breaking the porcelain. It falls into the fountain, which is what Cecilia goes to retrieve.We then see Cecilia in her room, smoking, just generally getting ready for the evening. Through her window she sees her brother Leon drive up with a friend, some rich tycoon who owns a chocolate factory. She sees Leon talking to Robbie with dismay. They meet Leon's friend, who seems rather shady. Leon, Cecilia and the friend, Paul Marshall, are all swimming I the lake and it is revealed that Robbie and Cecilia went to school together and that Robbie is pursuing a medical degree. Leon informs Cecilia that he has invited Robbie to dinner, and Cecilia is upset at this. The scene then cuts to Robbie in his cottage typing a letter to Cecilia, trying to apologize for his behavior earlier that day. He types several drafts before finally typing a rather raunchy sexual letter to her. While he is typing we see the scene cut back and forth between him and Cecilia getting ready and putting clips in her hair. (Important) He laughs as he writes it, then folds it up and places it next to his typewriter. He then handwrites a very heartfelt apology and goes to get ready for dinner that evening. As he walks down the lane to the main house he sees Briony playing in the garden and asks her to deliver the letter to Cecilia, which she does. As she is running to the house, we see Robbie suddenly remember that he put the wrong letter in the envelope and in fact, the raunchy letter is being delivered. He screams for Briony but its too late and she is already in the house and is reading the letter. She then delivers it to Cecilia, but without the envelope, so Cecilia knows that she has read it. We then see Paul Marshall wandering through the house and comes across the cousins, Pierrot, Jackson and Lola. He entertains the children but it is also clear that he is interested in Lola.Later on Briony goes to her room to change for dinner and Lola enters her room, complaining about being tortured by her little brothers. Briony takes this opportunity to tell Lola what was written in the raunchy letter, calling Robbie a sexual maniac. She then gets ready for dinner and is running down the stairs when she sees a small hairclip on the floor. She picks it up and sees a light shining through a doorway, she follows it to see Robbie and Cecilia in an awkward position against the wall of the library, obviously having made love just moments before. We see Briony's teary face just as the scene cuts to Robbie ringing the doorbell for dinner. Cecilia answers the door and he tries to apologize for giving the wrong version of the letter. Cecilia takes him to the library and basically they admit their attraction to one another and start kissing and having sex up against the wall. In the middle of it they tell each other they love one another and then continue, until Cecilia hears the door open and Briony walk in. They disentangle themselves and leave the room, with Briony just watching them.At dinner they all pretend nothing's happened, until Mrs. Tallis notices that the young twin boys aren't at dinner so Briony is sent to get them. She comes back down and informs the group that the boys have run away, so a search party is immediately formed. Briony takes a flashlight and set out alone and stumbles across a man with his pants down on top of Lola. As soon as the flashlight shines on them he runs away, but you don't see his face. Lola is crying and Briony runs up to her, asking her who the man was. Lola isn't sure as her eyes were covered, but Briony convinces her it was Robbie.Lola is brought into the house and the police are called and Briony testifies that it was Robbie who attacked Lola and she is sure she saw him. Cecilia tells the police not to believe Briony as she is a fanciful girl but as soon as Robbie comes back to the house, having found the two young boys, the police take him away.The movie cuts to 4 years later and we see Robbie in France with two other privates in the army, as it is now WW2. They ask him what an educated man like him is doing as a private, to which Robbie responds, you can't get promoted if you've come out of prison and he was given a choice, stay in prison, or join the army. Then we see a scene from six months earlier where Robbie and Cecilia meet after 3 and 1/2 years and after some awkward conversation they declare their love for one another after all this time. Cecilia has become a nurse now in London and is living in an apartment and doesn't speak to her sister Briony or her family anymore. Robbie returns to the war but they continue to write letters, Cecilia tells him of a cottage by the sea they can visit the next time he is on leave and gives him a picture of it to hold on to. We see him throughout the film, going through battle and looking at the same picture every chance he gets. Cecilia also tells him that Briony is now in Nurse's training and has written to her, asking to talk.We then see a 18 year old Briony, in her nurse's uniform, trying to fit in at the hospital. She writes to Cecilia, asking to talk and telling her she only now realizes the full extent of her false testimony years ago. We see Robbie wounded in France and waiting for the roundup of soldiers to be taken to the hospital and then see Briony and the other nurses tending to injured soldiers. She imagines that she sees Robbie but he isn't there. Several days later Briony then leaves the hospital to attend the wedding of Paul Marshall, who is marrying her cousin Lola. Lola sees Briony at the wedding but ignores her. Briony then goes to Cecilia's apartment and begs to talk to her, to apologize. She sees Robbie there, who wants to break her neck but instead Robbie and Cecilia make Briony fix what she has done wrong and change her statement. Briony admits that she saw Paul Marshall attacking Lola that night in the garden and they become upset because Paul has just married Lola so he has immunity. We see Briony agree to change her statement and she leaves and we see Cecilia and Robbie finally together in the apartment, kissing. Then Briony is on a train and suddenly the screen goes black and a woman says, can we stop for a moment.We cut to present day and we see an old Briony Tallis (Vanessa Redgrave) being interviewed about her latest book, titled Atonement. She explains how it is her last book because she is dying and she wanted to be completely honest about all the events of the situation. She admits however that she wasn't honest about one part. That she never went to her sister that day to ask for forgiveness and that Robbie was never there because he died of septicemia in France waiting to be taken to the hospital a few months earlier. She also says that she never got to set things right with her sister because she was killed in a bomb blast a few months after Robbie died. Briony admits that she has had to live with this truth all her life so she changed it in her book, in order to give Cecilia and Robbie their chance to be together in her book, if not in real life.The last scene shows Cecilia and Robbie playing on the beach and then going into the cottage that Cecilia had talked about earlier and the movie ends.

Tags: realism, bleak, flashback, tragedy, romantic, historical, sentimental

Review:
If however you like character development and a plot that unravels at a pace that allows you to be immersed in the atmosphere of the film then I can highly recommend Atonement as one of the best films that I have seen this year..
From the hazy, dreamy, hopeful days of 1935, a destructive act of spite, the horrors of Dunkirk (with one of the most fantastic long takes I have seen in a cinema for a very long), to the aftermath and a devastating "happy" ending, it is a magnificent and moving film, beautifully directed by Joe Wright.I have never really rated Keira Knightley or understood her popularity.
Keira Knightly is an odd actress, while she proved herself in Pride and Prejudice, yes I have unfortunately seen that movie, she comes across as a wooden actress in films like Pirates of the Caribbean.
It really is a powerful moment, and probably the one scene that got me closest to tears, purely because of the singing in the background, it is shocking just how amazing this sequence truly is.Overall Atonement is a perfect movie, in actual fact its a movie with pretty much no flaws whatsoever.
A budding young writer named Briony witnesses an innocent act she doesn't fully understand between her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and long-time family servant Robbie (James McAvoy) one restless summer day on her family's lavish country estate in 1935 England that leads to scandal in Joe Wright's dreadfully sumptuous adaptation of Ian McEwan's international best-selling novel, "Atonement." Four years later, all three characters try to find their own personal sense of peace or redemption during WWII.This brief synopsis does nothing to explain the intricate complexities of the plot and actions that take place.
The first third of the film is played like a "Masterpiece Theater" production of "The Great Gatsby" as seen through the eyes of Nancy Drew.However, what makes "Atonement" soar is the impeccable direction of Joe Wright.
The movie has the meticulous detail you would expect from a director of Joe Wright's calibre.Richard Brooks (writing in the Sunday Times) said he would be amazed if the jury finds a better film than Atonement to take first place at the Venice film festival on August 29th.He said, "I cannot think of a better British movie in years.
It begins in pre-war England in a large country house with James McAvoy's character (Robbie Turner) being wrongly accused of rape and being imprisoned and thus separated from Keira Knightley.
He is released from prison on condition he joins the army.This is a love story and more, with the back drop of the Second World War. Although it is not a war film as such, the scenes of the Dunkirk evacuation are some of the best of their type ever executed in cinema history.The scene that I was waiting to see was towards the end of the film.
4. In the 1930's in Britain (or America for that matter), if a father caught his daughter engaged in (or learned of) the acts that actually did occur the boy would find going to prison to be one of the nicer things that might happen to him.Now, about the structure of the movie:The story has a beginning and an end.
How I long for the days of Billy Wilder who established the journalistic character of Chuck Tatum in Ace in the Hole simply by having him strike a match on a typewriter in a very practised manner.Some of the scenes in France during the fighting I am sure would work better in the novel, in the film they are really a bit devoid of context.
Considering I saw comments before the movie saying things like "One of the greatest love stories of all time" and "Heart-wrenching" or "A true master-piece" I'll admit I was expecting something wonderful.
Everything, from the haphazard direction and editing to the numb acting, is a bit of an embarrassment to all involved.Wildly overrated, Atonement is closer in style and scope to a Merchant-Ivory film, so if that's your cup of tea, you might like this one a little more than I did.
This irrevocably alters the lives of all three, of course.The movie jumps around quite a bit, timewise, which at one point was an interesting approach to film-making but more often than not nowadays seems sort of played out and unnecessary; here it's done to confuse the audience a little bit, some trickery thrown in to distract from the fact that the plot itself is fairly bland and melodramatic.
McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland) looks a little more girlish here than Knightley does, what with his impossibly red lips, even in the war scenes.So. If you're expecting a thick-plotted, twisty thriller about what happens when a lie spirals out of control, this is not the movie for you; if you like costume dramas with actors rising to their material, this is also not the movie for you; if you like love stories with no apparent happy ending and actors sinking to melodramatic depths, this is a winner..
The problem with this movie is that the story and character is so petty, but the music score and cinemaphotography makes you feel like you are watching an epic tale.
The film's plot is really fairly simple, so the director and editor had to give far too much screen-time to certain scenes in an attempt to gloss over this fact (cinematography over substance).
It's not that I don't like the work of Ian MacEwan - I loved "Saturday" - but to my dread, the novel which I thought shallow to begin with was made into an even shallower movie.I wasn't going to bother seeing it at all, but did on the recommendations of many friends who literally raved about it.
She seemed alienated from everyone.I was in a small mature audience at the screening and there was a lot of laughter at what should have been emotional scenes which again detracted from any investment in the film itself.The story is cliché ridden and I thought, several times, it would have done better in more sensitive hands.
Possibly it might have worked a lot better as a mini-series, the time frame of the film itself was too short to explore the back story of each key character and particularly the key feature of the love between Ce and Robbie.
She reads a letter sent by the medical student son Robby, (James McAvoy) of the family housekeeper, to Briony's older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley).
I have rarely complained about specific reviews, ., however through utter astonishment at reading Empires Helen O'Haras recent verdict of Atonement as being 'a masterpiece' (Is she on the books of British Film incorporated !!!,) , including comments such as 'near faultless performances' , 'complex', 'devastating' and 'best Picture'...
The bitter lesson to be learned for me: an excellent team (Joe Wright as director and Keira Knightley as leading actress in "Pride and Prejudice") gives you no guarantee that their next movie is anything alike in quality!There was no chemistry between Keira Knightley and James McAvoy worth mentioning, like they were two strangers who are supposed to appear at the same scene (to achieve this: No Acting Required, as Robert Mitchum used to say).
It is hard to find out what the whole story is about, what the meaning of the figures' action were (hopefully the novel is better, but I haven't read it yet, and in my opinion a movie shouldn't require the knowledge of the book in order to be understood).Last but not least I found it extremely embarrassing how the movie failed to connect its narration with the cruelties of the World War. I couldn't help feeling that the war background was just abused as a picturesque stage to let James McAvoy stumble around..
Crafted in Britain by director Joe Wright, Atonement tells the story of young author Briony Tallis who becomes jealous of her older sister's illicit love affair with a servant.
"Atonement" is a major achievement of the year, as it transforms the complex words of Ian McEwan's psychological novel into esthetic cinematic greatness, making us feel different feelings and ultimately creating three intriguing atmospheres, the first being an intricate portrait of the lives of a family, the second being an intense yet realistic look at war and the third showing us a flawed, selfish woman full of regret for the actions that she once committed and the causes that they committed in the lives of others.
She is the weight of the final scene and her revelation watered my eyes in the end.While some persons usually complain because films aren't why they used to be, "Atonement" simply shows that true masterpieces with character development and extraordinary directing can still be made.
He walks around a lot, comes across a beach-front of soldiers (in a startling 5 minute long take no less, indulgent but effective), and yet this coupled later with the emergence of the Briony as a nurse doesn't really click for me.Yes, it should be compelling cinema to see Robbie suffering along with all the other British in the midst of the early, rough days of WW2, but what Wright shows us isn't much more compelling (or, for that matter, as well done) as any given number of war pictures of the period done in the present; even a harsh hospital scene with wounded only works so much until it's overkill.
I may be in the minority here from the masses who are praising Atonement to the sky, but only when Vanessa Redgrave appears does the film finally offer a satisfying catharsis.It's a sad thing too, because when Atonement is at its best it's what many dramas, particularly those of this kind of period setting, seem to lack in dealing the old love-and-war story.
When Briony Tallis (played three different ages by by Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, and Vanessa Redgrave) misinterprets an encounter between Robbie Turner (played by James McAvoy) and her sister Cecillia Tallis (played Keira Knightley), she tells a lie that carries such shocking consequences that it completely ruins their lives.
Saoirse Ronan is truly one of the best child actresses of late as she acts with such a profound maturity and intensity; and Vanessa Redgrave is so perfect in her small role as Briony in her older years that she still manages to make an impression and is able to convey such emotion solely through her expressions.
This all lead me to see the movie  despite the fact that my boss  when asked how is Atonement  after a 5 second pause  said, um.meaning  not so good.The story is set around the decade of world war II.
Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan), jealous of her sister Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) love affair with Robbie Turner (James McAvoy); accuses Robbie of being a sexual perverse and raping her friend.
Plot:1935, and 13 year-old Briony (Ronan) changes the course of several lives when she misreads the relationship between her sister Cecilia (Knightley) and housekeeper's son Robbie (McAvoy).
My Review: This is Briony (Saoirse Ronan), forged by her family and aspiring to be an accomplished writer and playwright and pedantic know-it-all; who uses that same enthusiasm to run riot with her advocated mind full of plethora's that seem to lie down like a silver-platter full of misconstrued actions.Her lucid creativity and lack of self-awareness; all too common with some kids these days, as she verges on the precipice of all too well known adolescence, adding a twisted sense of her judgement, in effect creating a series of shocking revelations.Romola Garai plays the elder counterpart of Briony gets the more difficult less pungent role, a character that lives an almost entirely introvert life.
Some screen mannerisms shows this gamut, she's overshadowed by Saoirse Ronan as her 13 year-old self, who seems more aware of herself and her surroundings.Her sister on the other hand, Cecilia (Keira Knightley), with her sharp tones are exactly posh enough to fit Cecilia; lounges by the pool smoking with Brother Leon (Patrick Kennedy) all the while keeping her distance from nonentity Robbie (James McAvoy), a scholarship boy with little to recommend him than himself.
All seems too well; time seems to be against them.1940, as World War II rages around them, we see the central three characters - Cecilia, Robbie and Briony (now played by Romola Garai) a few years later.
McEwan's brilliant novel with its themes of redemption and morality could never transfer perfectly but writer Christopher Hampton and director Joe Wright, give it a damn good try.Starting in 1935 the film follows a doomed romance and how an over-imaginative girl's actions affect the lives of those around her.
But after reading a letter by chance and witnessing some rather disturbing events, Briony changes the course of life for more than just a few people.I was not quite sure what I was expecting going into Atonement, but the movie I saw was not it.
You the viewer should finally feel the truth and justice.Overall "Atonement" is a good film I will not call it great because the war and romance genre isn't my favorite, yet it still has enough classic literary elements like lust, love, and the search for truthful justice to make it interesting and enjoyable to watch..
Robbie was taken away from Cecilia and was off to the war.The movie is shot from Briony's eyes as well as what really happened and it doesn't rely on twist to keep our attention even though the end did catch me off guard.
Overall, this is a great movie, solid story, good acting, amazing cinematography, but oh, how it drags.
'Atonement' tells the story of a series of unfortunate events, misinterpretations and consequences as 13 year old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) accuses her childhood friend, Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) of a terrible crime he did not commit.
But after watching the film, I've got to say I don't really see what all the fuss is about.The buzz is that Keira Knightley will receive another Oscar nod for her performance as the loyal lady in waiting, Cecilia Tallis as will James McAvoy for his role as the wrongly-accused Robbie Turner.
Briony is now a WWII nurse and is living with the guilty conscience of accusing an innocent man of a hideous crime, she riped the love of her sister's life right out of her hands and now she must tell the truth, even if it is too late.Atonement is one of the best films of 2007.
Ian McEwan's novel is brought to life in this great movie about love, actually about love story of Robbie Turner and Cecilia Tallis.
Briony's misunderstanding leads to a terrible crime whose consequences follow them through World War II.After "Pride & Prejudice", director Joe Wright decided to make another movie that is based on a book and this one is a winner and quite possibly the winner of Oscar for Best Picture in the next year.
Saoirse Ronan shows great potential, Keira Knightley isn't long in this movie but she's good as usual and Vanessa Redgrave is excellent as older Briony.
Really breathtaking and spectacular scene, cause "Atonement" is one beautiful but sad story and it is really shame to miss it, so go and watch one of top 10 movies in this year..
The same events are shown from multiple reverse angles; mid-way through the story relentlessly jumps forward to a time after what we know were years of pain and agony for our protagonists; and finally, the footnote at the end of the film, the gut-wrenching revelation which throws everything into question and shines a stark, illuminating light on the true nature of the film's emotional tragedy.Wright, this being his second directorial work after Pride and Prejudice, manages to most exceptionally capture the very balance of the work: the balance between broad themes of love, betrayal, tragedy and atonement and between the fine simplicities and nuances such as how his characters talk, act and interact.
Kiera Knightley had already proved her acting talent in her Oscar-nominated performance in Pride and Prejudice, incidentally also directed by Joe Wright, but it is in Atonement that she delivers her most wonderful, mature and best performance of her career so far.
It is so good, in fact, that I feel compelled to discourage viewers from reading the book before they see the movie, as Ian McEwan's striking, audacious prose is impossible to resist, but will also lessen the impact of the most shocking film epilogue I've seen this year.Much more adult than director Joe Wright's previous pairing with Keira Knightley (Pride & Prejudice), Atonement is quite similar to Capote in its analysis of the writing process and the sacrifices the author has to make.
Such attention to character requires good acting, and the performances are all equally superb: McAvoy, sad and angry, carries the film's second half with no fatigue at all, Knightley is dark, complex and very sensual in her first adult role, and the Ronan/Garai duo embody the young scribbler's ambition and ingenuousness with impressive sincerity.Every bit as seductive are the visuals, further proof of the great eye Wright had displayed on Pride and Prejudice.
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.
Two years after his feature debut, a pleasant adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel "Pride & Prejudice", Joe Wright makes another good feature - "Atonement", a movie that shamelessly screams Oscar.
Keira doesn't ruin the movie because she didn't have much to do except looking pretty (which she's great at) and sad all the time, but she still needs some acting lessons - this girl is definitely one of the most overrated young actresses of our time.Undoubtedly, "Atonement" is a feast for the eyes, and has elements to please romantic audiences and critics alike.