2007.123 Minutes. Rated R.
“Come back. Come back to me.”
The film is composed like Stieglitz’s “Steerage” photograph: a view filled with abstraction, happenstance and the consequence of class, bad luck and a passage that is separated by two distinct journeys. The direction of Joe Wright makes a complex narrative appear so simple.
Atonement – Universal Pictures
Like Stieglitz taking a “shot” at a complex narrative in one frame, Wright composes an equally difficult piece with the same variation and excitement. In what appears as a movie that by all accounts should come unraveled, it stands tall in affirming its place among the dramatic giants.
This is what earns Wright great acclaim: he taps into every moving part to complement each other, even if working in opposite directions. Atonement, then, becomes a mechanical masterpiece. The dissonant cinematography rolls against the accompaniment of a careful music that enhances the sequence. When the cinematography is picturesque, Wright changes direction to orchestrate a dissonant music. All the parts of the film roll against each other, somehow making it work and somehow enhancing the emotional storyline–of love, sadness and loss. If that’s not enough, the viewer is nagged by the periodic clicking (pounding) of the typewriter, a nod to the drama that is being written and re-written to unravel a dizzying tale of disbelief.
Keira Knightley is profound in her portrayal as Cecilia, a wealthy daughter living in the countryside of England who falls in love with the groundskeeper’s son, Robbie (James McAvoy). Cecilia and Robbie move in different social circles. By all accounts, this is a relationship that should never be given a chance to blossom. An accidental letter to Cecilia finds Robbie in Cecilia’s loving arms, and fuels a love story for the ages–or so it seems. Just as the two lovers are getting acquainted in their passion, a lie lands Robbie in jail. Robbie is forced to enter WWII as a field soldier while Cecilia stays behind, certain of Robbie’s innocence. She awaits this wronged ship to right itself. It never does.
The viewer, emotionally exhausted, curses little Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) for her reckless imagination. An aspiring writer, Briony falsely implicates Robbie in an act for which he did not participate. Because of Briony’s lone testimony, Robbie is sent away to jail. A forbidden love on the brink of greatness now slowly comes unraveling at the seams, challenging a family’s trust, its voice and its vision of the future. The viewer is confronted with a psychological self-examination. We recount everyone in our past who has lied to us, everyone who has changed us by word or by action. And faced with Briony’s confession that “I saw him with my own eyes,” we are left philosophically weary of mankind’s intentions to “see” only what it wants to see. We are filled instantly with regret and loss. And the typewriter keeps tapping.
Atonement is as much about seeking forgiveness for all of our “human, all too human” transgressions–against mediocrity and its great, but sometimes regrettable consequences–as it is about learning to find enough room for love and understanding. The film finds us enmeshed in a cathartic tale of stupidity. We are angry, sad and at once devastated. But in the end all we can do is cry. For how much of what we do is left to circumstances beyond our control? Atonement teaches us of our delicate humanity in a life that must learn to love, forgive and heal or wash away in the world of emotional war–a wound that cuts through many and never truly heals.
It is no surprise that Atonement was nominated for an Oscar for best film. It might have won an Oscar-the-Grouch award for emotional yo-yoing. It is always hard to replace the character depth and complexity of a novel written by Ian McEwan in a two hour film; however, Joe Wright exacts his necessary toll on the human mind and leaves enough on the screen in his artistic collage to change the course of history–through film, anyway, leaving the viewer to achieve perfection, even if the film itself lacks the recipe for perfection. It is the effort that is rewarding. And that’s why we should all watch it.
