Atonement - A

In Theatres, Rated R, 130 minutes. Trailer.

Atonement is the kind of sweeping tragic love story with its eye on more than just romance that Oscar loves. The setting is just before and during WWII in an aristocratic English home in which the oldest daughter Cecilia Tullis (Keira Knightley) and the housekeeper’s oldest son Robbie Turner (Jim McAvoy) are suddenly lovers. The scenes between these two bristle with the eroticism and desire of youth and possess a candor and truthfulness often lacking in period pieces. You will remember what it was like to be Robbie and Cecilia at 20. At first blush Atonement looks to be the umpteenth film of thwarted love between classes, but director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice, 2005) is hunting larger prey. Click below to keep reading "Atonement - A".Saoirse Ronan plays Briony, the younger sister of Cecilia, who has an intense crush of her own on Robbie. At thirteen she’s too young to understand the sexual interplay between adults, but old enough to be aware of it. On a fateful day she misconstrues several events and, in a moment driven equally by jealousy and concern, she swears to something she didn’t understand and didn’t fully see.

The balance of the film follows Briony’s attempts to atone for her lie, first by giving up a promising collegiate career to be a volunteer nurse, then through her subsequent life as an author. But is it possible for us to atone when we’ve hurt those closest to us? And is a thirteen-year-old accountable in the same way an adult would be? It’s no fun for me to ruin the ending by saying more, but the issue here is a gripping one that resonates with our shared human experience.

Also explored is the power of words to create, shock, turn-on, and destroy. Key to the opening act is an explicit letter McAvoy writes but never intends to send. As he types the mother of all bad words each letter appears in his typewriter, inhabiting the screen as the key is struck with a thud. The awkwardness in the theatre was palpable, much more than if the object described was shown. The film returns to this device of hearing an old typewriter pounding paper as the characters use words to create and destroy.

The visuals of Seamus McGarvey (World Trade Center) are stunning throughout. Keira Knightley is ravishing in greens and reds, and a long, slow tracking shot of the British army on a French beach as they await transport to Dunkirk is one for the ages. The acting is superb across the board, but it’s Vanessa Redgrave as the now old Briony in the final minutes that will blow you away and haunt you long after the credits scroll. She looks you in the eye and says the very words you’re scared to utter, not from some detached pinnacle of separated wisdom, but still full of doubt, jealousy, and self-loathing. She pleads that you tell her she’s made recompense, if only because she’ll say it back to you. A