Atonement

This film, based on a novel, was released during awards season 2007 as an awards season contender.  Director Joe Wright and Keira Knightly had worked together a couple of years earlier on a terrific adaptation of perhaps Jane Austin’s most famous book, Pride and Prejudice.  Wright’s energetic touches and Knightly’s fully committed performance as Elizabeth made Pride and Prejudice quite a treat, even though it has been made several times before.

My approach of films versus books is unconventional.  If given the choice I will often choose to watch the film first and if I enjoy it then I will read the book.  Films and books are different mediums and each have their own limitations.  A script is usually about 120 pages and whereas a book could be of any length.  Much of a book might be a character’s inner monologue but a screenwriter usually has to pick out the most effective way to relay a story visually and that often involves removing key sections of the book and/or changing them to fit the director’s vision.  I often find if I enjoy a book and then see the film I feel some disappointment as moments that I might have wanted to see that were removed, even if I can usually understand why they were taken out.  If I see the film first and then read the book then I often find the book to be an enhancement to the story since it contains more detail.

I suppose overall though it depends on how you experience things.  For example if you see a film first, will you be unable to get the lead actor out of your head while reading the book?  I have read so many James Bond novels that have been made into films starring different actors that I have learned to see envision a book character more as its own thing.  For example I do not read Live and Let Die and picture Roger Moore’s Bond, who is much more gentlemanly than the vicious version of Bond in that novel.   So for the reasons stated above I often find novels to be an augmentation of a film and I enjoy both more if I go this way.

Spoilers for Atonement below so reader beware:

Atonement is written by Ian McEwan, who won several awards for it.  I first saw the film prior to reading the book.  I have since read it (as well as his books Saturday and Solar) and enjoy his descriptive, immersive and yet flowing writing greatly.  Atonement tells the story of an upper class girl named Briony Tallis who lives in the English countryside in 1935.  Briony misreads the intentions of the young man, Robbie, her older sister, Cecilia, falls in love with.  When her cousin Lola is raped Briony wrongly accuses Robbie.  Robbie, who is the housekeeper’s son, is sent to prison and then released a few years later to serve in the army during World War II.  Robbie is eventually wounded and dies of septicaemia at Dunkirk in 1940 and Cecelia is killed by a real life explosion at a tube station in London while hiding during German air raids.  Briony becomes a writer and her last novel is the story of her sister and Robbie but eventually gives them the happy ending they did not get in real life, with Robbie exonerated and the two reunited.  The novel is Briony’s atonement as she has come to realize the damage she caused by the false accusation.

The film stars Keira Knightly as Cecilia, the romantic lead, though not the main character, James McAvoy as Robbie, Saoirse Ronan as the young Briony, Romola Garai as Briony around age 18, Vanessa Redgrave briefly as the older Briony, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Marshall, the rapist.  After my first viewing I thought both the setting and the story were intriguing but I could not quite connect with it, although I could not figure out why.  A year or two later I read the book and found it utterly absorbing as it filled in all the backstory on the characters, particularly Briony’s attempts to become a writer, her prior feelings for Robbie, as well as Robbie’s perspective on his life, his feelings for Cecilia, and his life after his arrest. 

Recently I decided to re-watch the film recently thinking now that I have read the book perhaps I might appreciate the film more.  I also have since enjoyed two other films by Wright, Hanna (also starring Saoirse Ronan) and Darkest Hour.  The first section of the Atonement at the Tallis family home works exquisitely.  By showing a few sequences from different points of view Wright shows how Briony could start to get a poor impression of Robbie.  Wright also captures the growing sexual tension between the young couple and the classism that keeps them apart.  Although the Tallis family paid for Robbie’s education they also actively keep him in his place.  Benedict Cumberbatch, who later worked with Knightly again in The Imitation Game, savagely hints at Marshall’s darker nature. 

The characters on the estate seem bored but Wright manages to make it exciting.  However an entire subplot from later in the story with Lola is underdeveloped.  Why did she marry the man who she must have some sense raped her?  Also, it is hinted that Lola and Marshall hurt each other before the rape scene (she has Chinese burns and he has a “war wound” that is not elaborated on).  The film could have shown us more of that dynamic as the marriage seems abrupt and an obstacle to clearing Robbie’s name which I cannot recall if the book explained further.

The library scene, which is the scene on which the film hinges, is touching as Cecilia and Robbie finally declare their love for each other but I found it unrealistic that the two characters would risk having sex in a room where anyone could walk in.  If Cecilia had locked the door as things started but Briony had a key that Cecilia did not know about it might have been more believable.  There is a mistake in the scene as there is a close-up of Cecilia taking her shoe off but when the scene is shown from Briony’s perspective Cecilia is clearly wearing her them. 

The films loses a lot of its power after it leaves the Tallis estate.  Robbie and Cecilia are reunited after four years but it has only been a couple of minutes onscreen.  We have not seen any moment of Robbie in prison suffering, nor of the sacrifice Cecilia made by separating from her family, nor of the two longing for each other during their four year separation so we in the audience are not able to relate to the awkwardness even though both performers portray it well.

Saoirse Ronan largely exits after the 1935 scenes (necessary due to her age) which hurts the film as young Briony is the most compelling character.  We never see a moment where the 18 year old Briony realizes her error.  She is already aware and the half hour or so with her gives her only guilt to play as she tries to reconcile with Cecilia.  Vanessa Redgrave’s older Briony is more reflective and even though she only has a few moments in the film is able to express Briony’s dilemma and the film’s theme.

Ronan is so effective in the first hour of the film that it is satisfying that her career has flourished in the years since.  Ronan is able to communicate beautifully with her eyes and shows Briony thinking and processing.  The film rightfully drops a lot of the steps of Briony learning to become a writer, which would not work well on film, but Ronan captures a lot of the writer’s angst in the moment where Briony is trying to get the young kids to star in her play.  I have not seen all of Ronan’s work but have been impressed by her fully developed and lived-in characters in Hanna, Ladybird, Little Women and especially Brooklyn.  Notably in real life Ronan has a strong Irish accent so it is extra impressive that at such a young age she could play an English character so credibly.

Robbie’s trek through northern France holds some interest as he seems to be working his way back to Cecilia.  Wright shows us he is wounded but you would need to read the book to know it is from a piece of shrapnel that becomes infected.  I found it confusing when I first saw it since it did not appear to be from a gunshot wound.  McAvoy and Wright conveys his decline when he cannot get water which seems to truly take effect during the five minute single shot of Robbie walking the beaches of Dunkirk that exhibits the scale of the pending evacuation.  There is an entire sense of community communicated through that shot between the broken ships, the thousands soldiers who go from desperate to playful depending on where Robbie is on the beach. 

The 18 year old Briony gets a strong introductory shot and the hospital sequence captures the chaos of the wounded soldiers coming in.  The nurse crying in the corner is a good touch.  The same head nurse who tells Briony not to give out her name instructs her to comfort the French soldier, which is ironic but perhaps intentional.  I love the touch of Debussy’s Claire de Lune as Briony watches the completely misleading war propaganda.

The score by Dario Marianelli, which won the Academy Award, is magnificent.  The use of the piano and cello conveys the sadness of not only the lost love but also of Briony’s lost innocence.  One of the first sounds in the film is of Briony’s typewriter which I thought was a sound effect but is actually part of the score.

There is a hint that something is off when Briony arrives at Cecilia’s apartment.  Since it takes place a couple of weeks before Robbie dies it does not line up with Robbie’s last memory of Cecilia.  Also I remember wondering if Robbie had recovered from his wound on the beach, but isn’t this before?  McAvoy’s anger is so strong in the scene that I quickly forgot the implausibility.  Wright uses pauses and frames the scene with unusual angles to capture some of the awkwardness before the scene truly explodes.   The perspective is of someone standing in the room watching the drama. 

James McAvoy is fantastic as Robbie.  He is dashing, unsure of how to act on his feelings for Cecilia, and seems capable of almost anything.  Knightley, who has starred in a lot of period romantic dramas, is snobbish in the beginning and seems to be willing her suppression of her attraction to Robbie.  She uses a high posh voice similar to that of Harriet Walter, who plays her mother.  Knightley’s best scene is the one by the fountain where the emotions of her burgeoning attraction to Robbie conflicts with the events of the scene.  She wears a beautiful emerald green dress for some key moments in the film, which I think played a role in the film being nominated for Best Costume Design.  I think Knightley slightly overplays her “Come back to me” line but the connection between the two is believable.  Brenda Blethyn has a few touching scenes as Robbie’s devoted mother, who seems to be Irish, although Robbie speaks with a high class English accent.  As McAvoy is Scottish the decision to use that accent is deliberate and must come from Robbie’s attempts to fit in with the Tallis family, and their class.

In conclusion the high points of the film (wartime setting, romance, guilt) make the film version of Atonement entertaining but some of the missing pieces of the story keep it from reaching its full potential.  I also feel that the final twist, that what we have been watching is Briony’s novel which is based on the experiences but with a happier ending, does not work as well in the film as in the book.  Nonetheless Wright’s directorial touches ensure that his films are never boring. ***