Atonement: A Review



Ian McEwan's 2002 novel, Atonement, is a fine book . Joe Wright and Paul Webster have made a movie which does it justice.

Ian McEwan's website lays out the story:

On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her older sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper's son Robbie Turner, a childhood friend who, along with Briony's sister, has recently graduated from Cambridge. By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed forever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had never before dared to approach and will have become victims of the younger girl's scheming imagination, and Briony will have committed a dreadful crime, the guilt for which will colour her entire life.

The spelling of "colour" is a clue, this story is British. That is more evident in the movie than it was on reading the book. British drama has become more restrained since it climbed out of the circular outdoor theaters. Now we can watch British actors stiffen even more than usual, for dramatic effect, with furtive casting about of the eyes the only motion on the screen.

Methinks I doth protest overmuch. For the entire movie, I saw the actors as their characters, never an actor trying to play a character. This movie tells the story of the novel very effectively.

There is just something about the appearance of Keira Knightley , though. She looks like an exotic creature who has been pressed between the pages of a gigantic book. When she turns sideways, she disappears.

Posted: Mon - December 10, 2007 at 10:42 PM        

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