Joe Wright’s second major film Atonement continues to showcase this young director’s amazing talent. Unfortunately I don’t believe the film’s story lives up to the same expectations.
Atonement is about the consequences of one night when a 13 year old girl (Saoirse Ronin) accuses her sister’s lover (Keira Knightley and James McAvoy) of a crime he did not commit. The opening is beautifully played out, with excellent pacing and interesting characters. But then the housemaid’s son is arrested and the movie struggles to regain the magic it had in the beginning. We follow McAvoy’s character to war, we cease to really see any of Knightley’s character, and sadly the movie failed to establish anything really powerful between them in those first 45 minutes.
Academy Awards:
This film is a far cry from the best picture of the year. It is admittedly beautiful and does contain an amazing uncut scene when McAvoy’s character is at Dunkirk (although it failed to emotionally impact me like the Children of Men scene). For these reasons I think it is deserving of Best Art Direction and Cinematography. I also think the original score by Marianelli was really unique and flowed perfectly in and out of the action.
I decided enjoying this movie hinges on whether or not you can forgive the 13 year old character of Briony; or at the very least understand that the film is really about her lifelong attempt to atone for her actions. If you can do that, then it is an interesting journey of a character dealing with guilt, consequences, and growing up. At the end there is a leap in time were Briony is now an old woman and is talking on a television show about her latest novel called Atonement. She has worked out her guilt in it and given Knightley and McAvoy the love affair they deserved but never received because both died during the war. The audience even realizes that one of the scenes in the film was just in her imagination.
Not exactly the best picture of the year, but not entirely disappointing either. The more time that has passed, the more I would like to see it again. This film barely gets 4 out of 5.
