Atonement
Atonement is a period drama set before, during, and after World War II. It is directed by Joe Wright, based on a novel by Ian McEwan
James McAvoy plays Robbie Turner, the son of one of the housekeepers for the wealthy Tallis family, but he has grown up with the family’s children and is almost treated as one himself. Keira Knightley is the college age daughter of the family and is named Cecilia. These two have a burgeoning relationship that at first they deny, but then can no longer hide from each other.
The house is also occupied by thirteen year old Briony Tallis, Cecilia’s little sister. She is played by Saoirse Ronan. Briony is a precocious girl who writes plays and is always trying to be the center of attention.
Just as Robbie’s and Cecilia’s relationship is coming alive, Briony witnesses several key events between them that she doesn’t really understand, and then she misunderstands and misrepresents a terrible event that occurs one night among some guests of the Tallis family.
The upshot is Cecilia’s relationship with both Robbie and her family is ruined, and Robbie is sent away.
After that the film jumps a few years later to during World War II, where Robbie is now a soldier in France and Cecilia is a nurse in London. The film follows two major threads from this point on. One is the single-minded mission of Robbie to get back home to Cecilia. And the other is of, the now grown-up, Briony attempting to make amends for the misrepresentation she made as a child. She has come to the realization that she didn’t understand what was happening that night years before.
This is one of those lush period recreations. The look and feel of the film was very successfully realized. The time before the war is sort of golden and the characters are innocently spoiled. All of that is transformed in one night, and during the war the images become grey and bloody; mirroring the trauma happening within the Tallis family.
The performances in this film are good, and the movie is nice to look at. There are portions where it begins to feel a bit long; one segment that is set on the beach at Dunkirk felt a little overdone. Maybe after setting up such a lavish reproduction of the scene they felt they had to include all of it. That being said, it is still a fairly impressive sequence.
This is a very good movie. In another year I might have it at the top of my list of movies of the year. But this year there are a couple of possible masterpieces out there. Still, I’m sure it would make my top 10.
