There's something refreshingly old school about Joe Wright's Atonement, a film that flies in the face of fashionable handheld grit, even as it toys with its period-romance tropes. Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Ian McEwan's acclaimed novel begins respectably enough, on an English country estate in the years before WWII, with spoiled rich girl Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and university-bound housekeeper's son Robbie (James McAvoy) making doe eyes at one another. Their desires are thwarted, however, when Cecilia's thirteen-year-old sister Briony (a remarkable Saoirse Ronan), thanks to a mixture of prudish jealousy and childish ignorance, accuses Robbie of a crime he did not commit. He goes to jail, then winds up fighting in WWII, as Cecilia and Briony become nurses, caring for sick soldiers. But at this point, Atonement transforms into something entirely different — less a romance and more a twisted meditation on flawed perception.
Wright's sensibility, for at least the first half of his film, is blisteringly cinematic. This guy can use a camera, and he wants you to know it. A good thing, too, because Atonement's otherwise spare story is all about vision: pivotal scenes are played out, first through Briony's eyes, then in more detail, giving us key details missing from the child's perspective. (And let's also pause a moment to appreciate Atonement 's refusal to privilege the child's-eye view, unlike so many other films.) It's an interesting way to tell a story, to be sure, but its constant repetitiveness would be grating were Wright's camera not so expressive.
But this is, in reality, two different films. Possibly even three. The narrative conceit of telling Robbie and Cecilia's tale from Briony's point of view in the first half finds an unlikely payoff in the film's final act, which casts what we've seen up till then in a rather different light. To say more would be to say too much, except to note that this twist will likely divide audiences: Some will find it cheap and possibly even pointless, but others will be haunted by it. Count me in among the latter group, not least because Wright's style sells it all so well. — Bilge Ebiri
