Atonement
Rated R
2.5 Stars Out of 4

Atonement is an interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying wartime romance that suffers from plot contrivances and the filmmakers’ fascinations with representing the narrative possibilities of a writer’s manipulation of reality. Based on a novel by Ian McEwan, and adapted for the screen by playwright Christopher Hampton, the first half of the film concerns the lives of a wealthy upper class English family in the mid-1930s. Briony Tallis is a precocious 13 year old who sees herself as an aspiring writer. Observing the family around her, and especially her attractive older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley), she creates a short play on the theme of love. Briony becomes suspicious of Cecilia’s present lover, a family estate worker, Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), after reading an explicit note meant to be delivered to Cecilia. Later Briony wrongly accuses Turner of an unspeakably perverse crime, which separates the lovers for nearly four years.

After a promising beginning, the film jumps to the beginning years of World War II in France where Turner is now a soldier cut off from his unit and is awaiting an Allied rescue at Dunkirk. Director Joe Wright offers standard images of suffering soldiers in a war torn countryside and contrasts voice over narration of letters sent between Cecilia and Robbie as the lovers seem destined to one day be reunited.

While Wright’s camera seems in love with Knightley, having directed her to an Oscar nomination for Pride and Prejudice, the emotions in Atonement are somehow hyperbolically forced. You don’t feel enough for the characters, partly due to lack of character development, several plot contrivances, the shifts of time and a somewhat surprising ending twist provided for the film’s closure. Knightley and McAvoy are effective enough, but their performances won’t draw you to tears. The three actresses who play Briony at different stages Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave provide the film’s most compelling heartfelt performances as they define a character most in need of forgiveness.