Atonement, the cinematic adaptation of Ian McEwan's 2002 best-selling novel, has garnered much critical acclaim since its release at the end of last year. Only a marginal amount of this is deserved. The film is surrounded by an award-filled aura, provided by its director and star-studded cast, that just about guarantees good box office returns. But upon deeper examination, the film turns out to have a fickle focus and a script that is mesmerizing at no point, typical to many in its genre.
In England in 1935, precocious Briony Tallis (Ronan) is living on her family's country estate. Her sister, Cecilia (Knightley), is home from Cambridge where she had been studying with the housekeeper's son, Robbie (McAvoy). She and Robbie have an uncertain relationship - neither is willing to act on the romantic chemistry that definitely exists between them. One day, Briony sees an argument between Cecilia and Robbie at the garden fountain. Robbie accidentally breaks an antique vase and a piece of it falls into the fountain. Angrily, Cecilia strips to her underwear and dives into the fountain to retrieve it. The movie then does something narratively innovative: it rewinds the clock by about fifteen minutes and shows us the same incident from the perspective of Cecilia and Robbie. It's much more innocent the second time.
Robbie tries to write a note of apology to Cecilia. One of the drafts includes a sexually charged declaration of his love. He then writes an actual apology, intending to deliver this one. However, he accidentally gives the sexual note to Briony to deliver. She reads the note and is scandalized. She gives it to Cecilia but then confides to Lola, her cousin, that Robbie is a sex maniac.
Robbie 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, the Tallis' other cousins, have run away. While looking for them by a creek, Briony stumbles on Lola being raped by someone. Briony insists to Lola and the police that Robbie is the culprit and brandishes the sexual letter to Cecilia as evidence. Only Cecilia protests his innocence. Robbie is sent to prison for rape. Four years later he is released into the British army and is sent to northern France to fight the Nazis.
The rest of the film covers Robbie's journey back to Cecilia and Briony's journey to atone for the false witness she bore towards the other two.
The film uses the World War II background to examine a host of dark impulses, like jealousy, lust and deceit. However, it fails to find a strong connection between the fates of the characters and the ideas and historical events that swirl around them, making the film nothing more than a heavily decorated and superficial reading of the book on which it is based (New York Times). The superficiality of the book's conversion into film is enhanced by the decidedly Hollywood ending that Christopher Hampton has tacked onto the end of the film.
This is not to say that there are not intense and grandiose images throughout the film that suit the powerful performances given by the film's young cast, because Seamus McGarvey's cinematography really does deserves the Oscar nomination it has received. Along with director, Joe Wright, he favours long, lingering close-ups that trace every flicker of feeling, from Ronan's luminous blue eyes clouding over with righteous gravity to the tremors of hurt and love in McAvoy's sensitive face and the defiant jut of Knightley's jaw as it melts into tender affection.
Most of the film's narration is done through powerful close-ups like these or intense tracking shots like the one used to cover the British evacuation of Dunkirk Beach. It is here that Wright shows Dunkirk from a soldier's perspective, instead of the usual view of it as a wartime success, which viewers all know.
Another highlight of Atonement is the way in which composer, Dario Marianelli (also an Academy Award nominee for his work here), has used the sound of Briony's typewriter to underscore the movie's relationship to writing. The clack-clacking that is repeated at various stages throughout the film is joined by the steady plink of a repeated piano note. Marianelli's score supports but manages never to overpower the film's flimsy story line.
Ultimately, Atonement only manages to rise above the tackiness associated with the genre of romantic drama because of its outstanding cinematography and unique score. Whether any of the characters' actions are atoned for by the end of the film is a matter of perception, but the cast still manages to add an admirable amount of emotion to an unstable script, which should, perhaps, have been left as the book it started out as.