Based on Ian McEwan’s novel that questions the redemptive powers of the imagination, the story has all the makings for a three-hanky film.
By Bob Brown
THIS film won more Golden Globe nominations than any other this year. It has great pedigree: Ian McEwan’s novel, on which it’s based, was a Booker Prize nominee in 2001. Director Joe Wright won film critic awards for his previous (and first) feature-length movie, Pride and Prejudice (2005), which starred Keira Knightley, whose performance also won notices. Knightley is again a Golden Globe nominee for Atonement.
The story has all the makings for a three-hanky film. That’s not to say it’s lightweight. Rather, one might call McEwan’s book a novelist’s novel, dealing as it does with the writer as a craftsperson, and with how fiction (or art) is put together, how it intersects with reality. The novel questions the redemptive powers of the imagination and, in turn, what may be the role of art to cleanse the soul.
As some have noted, the approach resembles that of Henry James’ What Maisie Knew, which is told from the viewpoint of a young girl who imperfectly understands the breakup of her parents’ marriage. Atonement centers on 13-year-old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan), a budding writer with a vivid imagination, who has a crush on Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), the son of her family’s housekeeper, Grace (Brenda Blethyn).
Robbie is too old to return Briony’s immature attentions in kind. He secretly holds a candle for her older sister, Cecilia (Knightley), who was a college mate when both were sent up to Cambridge by Cecilia’s father, Leon (Patrick Kennedy). On the Tallis estate in the summer of 1935, Briony witnesses what appears to be a compromising encounter between Cecilia and Robbie, who are on the ledge of a fountain. After a brief struggle over a vase, Cecilia strips down to her underclothes, plunges into the water and re-emerges, soaked and revealing. She storms off.
This charged image puzzles and upsets Briony. When she later receives a sealed note that Robbie asks her to hand-carry to Cecilia on his behalf, Briony burns to know what’s in it. Tearing it open as soon as she’s alone, Briony is shocked by its crude sexual content, expressing Robbie’s desire to do certain things to a certain part of Cecilia’s anatomy. Out of spite, she gives Cecilia the note. When she later encounters Cecilia and Robbie in flagrante delicto in the mansion’s darkened library, Briony is convinced that Robbie is a dangerous sexual maniac.
This is later confirmed for her when she joins a search party that evening to hunt for her obstreperous young cousins, Pierrot and Jackson Quincey (Felix and Charlie von Simson), who have run off into the darkness. Instead of finding the boys, she stumbles on their older sister, Lola (Juno Temple), being sexually assaulted by a man, who dashes away. When Lola returns to the house, sobbing, the police are called and Briony, giving eyewitness testimony, pegs Robbie as the assailant. But when Robbie returns much later, with the boys in tow, Briony fears she has made a terrible mistake. We know, from flashbacks, that she has completely misunderstood what she has seen and read. Nevertheless, she sticks by her story and Robbie is hauled off to prison, allowed one last hug from Cecilia, who professes her love.
His only out is to join the army, where he languishes on the battlefields of France, while Cecilia, who is in the nurse corps, writes him. Now 18, Briony (Romola Garai), too, is a war-time nurse. She suffers seeing the trauma of gravely wounded soldiers, as well as pangs of guilt, knowing that she could have retracted her testimony years earlier and saved Robbie from an uncertain and painful fate.
Briony attempts to atone for what seems an unforgivable act, looking back years later with the perspective of a mature writer (a cameo by Vanessa Redgrave).
From the start, this eye-catching movie is gorgeous, with rich cinematography by Seamus McGarvey, who also gave an authentic look to The Hours. The heart-tugging score is by Dario Marianelli, who also collaborated on Pride and Prejudice. It’s intriguing how the music interweaves ambient sounds. The film begins with the sound of Briony banging out a play script on an old typewriter. The percussive keystrokes become part of the rhythmic beat in scenes where Briony is furiously rushing about. With all the flashbacks necessary to juxtapose what Briony sees with what is really happening, editing is crucial. Paul Tothill, also a collaborator on Pride and Prejudice, deserves kudos for that taut, gripping job.
Finally, applause for all the actors, even in the smallest parts. Standouts are Knightley, McAvoy, and Redgrave, who are all powerfully affecting. This is one movie that lives up to the hype and will certainly be well represented at both the Golden Globe and Oscar ceremonies.
Rated R for disturbing war images, language and some sexuality.

