CINEMA: Atonement

This has to be the most talked about British movie of the year coming as it does with a Class A pedigree and a cast list to match.  It’s adapted by Christopher Hampton from Ian McEwan’s acclaimed book, is directed by Joe ‘Pride And Prejudice’ Wright and has BAFTA nominations written all over it.

Set just before and during the Second World War it follows the (mis)fortunes of young would-be lovers, the privileged Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), the son of her family’s housekeeper. But their nascent and rather innocent affair is seen in an entirely different light by Cecilia’s younger sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan) who, in a fit of pique, sets in motion a series of events that will blight all their lives. As the war arrives, smashing other people’s hopes for the future Cecilia, Robbie and a now grown Briony (Romola Garai) have to deal with the aftermath of one shocking lie that stole their own futures from them.

Told in a strange, back-looping style where the same scene is shown from different people’s perspectives, it’s a haunting tale more than masterfully crafted by Wright, whose direction produces iconic images in nearly every shot. The most stunning sequence in the movie sees Robbie, who has become a soldier, finding himself on the beach at Dunkirk just before the evacuation.

In one astonishing take we see him walk up the beach, past a line of horses being put down, around a fairground carousel and bandstand where squaddies are singing hymns, and finally into a bar where his face is superimposed onto a scene from a black and white French film being projected on the whitewashed wall. It is an awesome piece of filmmaking, which almost puts the acting in the shade. But James McAvoy is magnificent as Robbie, his face at times more eloquent than any lines he has to say and Keira Knightley looks the part and has the right clipped vowels for Cecilia. However it is Romola Garai who proves to be much more convincing in what could have been the very unsympathetic role of Briony, who finds she never can atone for the damage she has done.    Dee Pilgrim