Review

Review Date: 9-December-07
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Junk

Atonement (2007)

"Atonement" comes at you with the grandeur of a cinematic thoroughbred scenting an Oscar at the finish line. It prances with the confidence born of impressive scenery, pretty actors, a distinctive soundtrack, and a literary pedigree. Yet unfortunately, for those who put their hard-earned money on it, it meanders off the track. The movie has no point and takes a long time getting there.

Since it is called "Atonement," one might suppose the story centers around a character who does something bad and tries to make up for it. The marketing and plot of the film do not support this theory. The bad thing is not done by billed star Keira Knightley or James McAvoy, but by a girl (Saoirse Ronan) whose action may be excused by confusion and youth. In pre-WWII England, this girl, Briony, is a budding writer with a romantic imagination who belongs to a patrician family. She is greatly attached to her older sister Cecilia and their hired-hand-cum-surrogate-cousin Robbie, but after she witnesses an odd interchange between them she starts to question how they all might coexist. Then, after further witnessing two sexual encounters she was not meant to see — one an act of violence, the other an act of passion — Briony falsely accuses Robbie of rape. Her testimony banishes him from Cecilia, whom he loves, and condemns him to an unjust punishment.

As depicted by the movie, Robbie's sentence consists chiefly of a stint in war-torn France, his jail years being passed over entirely. One has to wonder if the guilty girl can be blamed for this; wouldn't an Englishman in his twenties have gone to war regardless of his past? The middle of the film follows him as he encounters increasingly baroque images of a world gone mad, pining all the while for the woman who waits for him at home. Cecilia has forsaken her family for their part in Robbie's cruel fate and devotes herself to nursing fallen soldiers. They long for each other as so many of their contemporaries must have done, even without fibbing sisters.

So what does Briony do to expiate a sin she committed as a child whose aftermath may have been inevitable in any case? Well, now played by Romola Garai, she pounds on the typewriter a lot and submits herself to bloody wounds and filthy bedpans. She speculates that her deed had its root in class prejudice, although neither she nor the movie explores this (not even at the beginning, when it is unfolding). She mopes around and then, years later (played by Vanessa Redgrave), she reveals that her "atonement" was as futile as it was feeble. At least, I think that is what she reveals. It is possible that the movie instead reveals its origins as a novel with a writerly nod to the immortality of the literary character. Either way, for so lengthy a series of epic tableaux, "Atonement" describes almost nothing.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.