by Sabrina Gabriels

Created on: January 05, 2008

ATONEMENT
Atonement is the adaptation of Ian McEwan's 2001 homonymous novel. I have not read Mr. McEwan's novel and can only write of the motion picture, directed by Joe Wright, which is fascinating on multiple levels all on its own.

The first sensorial experience of the movie is auditive: we hear the shuffle of a manual typewriter, soon after followed by the sound of the keys being stricken while they spell out on the screen the name of the film.

The auditive is joined by the visual once we come across the first image: young Briony Tallis typing the last words of a play in her bedroom on a manual typewriter very much like the one we just heard.

It is made clear from the get go what Atonement is about: words.

The setting for the story is an English country home. The main characters are Cecilia Tallis, a beautiful and proud young woman, unadmittedly in love with Robbie, the housekeeper's son whose education has been paid for by her father. Robbie Turner, an ambitious and sensitive young man that dreams of overcoming class differences to love and be loved by Cecilia. Briony Tallis, a thirteen year old child, who has a crush on Robbie and displays great temperament and imagination through her actions and words.

The unspoken feelings between Robbie and Cecilia lead to an awkward and defining moment by the estate fountain. Robbie then struggles to find the right words to express his emotions and put them on paper as a way to make amends for his actions that day. His fumbled attempt to do so initiates the tragedy of the story by nurturing jealousy and betrayal in a self-centered and highly strung child with a deep crush on him, for he can't bring himself to hand the envelope with his confession to Cecilia and entrusts Briony with the mission.

Briony violates the privacy of the missive and the aggressively sexual term she discovers in it when committing her invasion, baffles and shocks this young girl who has not yet come to terms with her own sexuality. The erotic nature of the letter, as much as the fact that it's not directed to her, cruelly leaves her out of Robbie's world. It also extinguishes the possibility of fulfilling her crush.

The wound inflicted by the note is deepened when Briony witnesses Cecilia's and Robbie's first moment of passion. Her impulse from then on is to enforce the same uncertainty and despair she's now experiencing. The ravaging of a young cousin named Lola that is visiting the Tallis estate, gives her the perfect opportunity and, with the rashness

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