It seems if you've read the book, Atonement is a great movie, though that's hard for me to believe. I had not read the book and knew very little of the story going into the film and I found the film quite weak.
The film is the story of Briony Tallis. It begins in 1935 with her as a 13 year-old at her family's British mansion. Her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) has a thing for Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), the son of one of the servants, who the family likes enough to pay for his college education. We know nothing else about them but are witness to two of their dalliances, as is Briony. While searching for missing twins, Briony is also witness to another sexual assault and falsely accuses Robbie of the crime. The film then jumps 4 years into the future to World War II. Robbie for some reason is not in jail but is a soldier in France. There are several war scenes that seem completely arbitrary: Robbie in an attic with two comrades, then walking through a field stumbling upon bloodless dead school girls then fortuitously meeting up at Dunkirk for the evacuation. In flashback we see Cecilla is a nurse in London and has a random half hour encounter with Robbie. Briony is also a nurse in London and we see several events from early in her career: what is apparently the first soldier to die while she comforts him and bonding with some coworkers who try to guess at her past. These two stories come together at the end but I'll leave that for a spoilers section.
The film felt like a long montage. Maybe if I had read the book these disparate scenes would have suggested various passages, but that shouldn't be a prerequisite to enjoy the film. E.g, I understand the book explains that Robbie was released from prison on condition of enlistment. There are two short shots of the mother in bed seeming ill while a small boy throws a ball into a wall. It's useless in the film and was probably a chapter in the book.
The entire war story line is a distraction from the main story of Briony's guilt. After all, the film is called Atonement and begins and ends with Briony. Sure, there's a tradition of setting stories in historical background but this film gets the tone wrong. The Dunkirk scene includes a 5 minute tracking shot that while technically impressive serves no plot point. I found it fitting that after wandering around for five minutes they ended up at near where they started. I noticed the shot itself not the scale of the horror as in depot scene Gone With the Wind or any of Saving Private Ryan. Also jarring was that at first the injured are mostly shown bloodlessly until some of the later scenes in the hospital when they decide it's time to abruptly pump up the gore.
We're supposed to feel for the tragedy of these separated lovers but I knew so little about them I didn't care that much. A subplot is fine, but in this film it felt like it came at the expense of time spent to add depth to the main story. We're supposed to experience Briony's guilt and attempts to live with it or overcome it but it seemed so tangental to the storytelling. The last scene does its best to save the film but it raised more questions for me than it answered and by then I was way way past caring.
This is another film told non-linearly. Leaving out parts of the story to make a mystery for the audience annoys me when M. Night Shyamalan does it and it annoyed me here too. I much prefer when our mysteries are shared with the characters. Showing a late flashback to reveal new emotional motivations seems far less effective to me than letting me experience the scenes with the knowledge of the characters. I'm prepared to think this might be different in books than in films, but it was true in this film.
I'm really surprised this film got 7 oscar nominations. Art Direction (aka sets), Costumes and Cinematography I guess can go with any lavish period piece. I found the nominated score particularly annoying. It struck me as looped standard melodramatic music with touches of annoying Eyes Wide Shut piano notes.
I know I'm in the minority with this review. I'd love to hear comments if you've seen the film or read book or both.
*Spoilers*
I tried to avoid revealing too much of the story. It really bothered me that the relationship between Lola and Paul was glossed over. We have to assume that Lola knew it was Paul that night but we really don't know if it was consensual or not. It felt to me like she was coming on to him in the candy scene but it feels like that's pushing it. I suppose her burns she blames on the twins could instead have come from a previous encounter with Paul (he has an injury too). Assuming the later marriage is supposed to tell us the "assault" was consensual, then I'd like to know how Lola (and Paul) lived with the guilt of sending Robbie to jail. That seems equal to Briony's guilt (if not more so) and I think it would have be interesting to contrast how they dealt with it.
It's also not clear if Briony knew it wasn't Robbie and lied, thought it was Robbie and was merely wrong, or convinced herself it was Robbie because of her crush and thought she was telling the truth. It's probably the latter, but really why leave ambiguity? And I certainly would have been more invested in these event if I knew at the time about her crush on Robbie.
I was completely shocked that when Briony stumbled into the library that Cecilia said nothing to her, not even a don't tell anyone about this. But it's far beyond my willing suspension of disbelief that she didn't have a forceful conversation with Briony before the trial or tried to discredit her during the trial by disclosing her actions. Or that Robbie wouldn't have put together the crush and the jealousy in his own defense.
If Cecilia was willing to wait for Robbie why didn't she see him when getting out of jail? If Cecilia didn't talk to Briony didn't she have to make up (for the novel) what Cecilia whispered to him when being arrested and the whole encounter in the cafeteria? How would she have known about them otherwise?
We know nothing of Briony's life other than she became a successful novelist (she must have been successful to publish 21 novels). Did she marry? Did her guilt leave her emotionally stunted? Wouldn't these things be more relevant to a story about making amends than the evacuation at Dunkirk?
I've read how the story was so deep and layered and I just don't see it. I find it shallow and merely suggestive. I also think that the ending, revealing that a mere one scene was fictional is not a big deal in a film almost a decade after The Sixth Sense. The real weight of the last scene is that Briony lived with this guilt for decades and used fiction as means to seek redemption. It's tragic Cecilia and Robbie didn't have time together. Any psychiatrist would have told her that they might never have managed an overt relationship because of the class difference and that Briony didn't cause their deaths. If Briony really did convince herself that it was Robbie and didn't realize it wasn't until the wedding, then she couldn't have even saved him from jail time. And it hardly seems a revelation to think that writing could be cathartic.
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