Atonement (R)

There are people who find it odd that I usually don’t read novels. Oh sure, I’ve read A Tale of Two Cities, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, but contemporary fiction I mostly give a miss. The film “Atonement” is a perfect example of why I’ve made that choice.

If I watch a crappy, pretentious movie I’m out two hours of my life that I’ll never get back. If I read a crappy, pretentious novel, I’m out many more hours that I’ll never get back. That said, my guess is that “Atonement” is a better book than it is a movie. But that’s still not saying much.

The story is more or less told from the point of view of Briony (Saoirse Ronan), an imaginative, wealthy, somewhat spoiled child of an English Country Manor. She misinterprets an innocent encounter she sees in a garden between her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) the favored son of one of the kitchen staff. Briony builds that, a mistakenly presented draft of an apology, and another incident into a charge that sends Robbie away from the house and off to prison.

With the coming of World War II Robbie winds up in the army at Dunkirk. Cecilia is a nurse caring for wounded soldiers and Briony (now 18 and played by Romola Garai) eventually in nurses’ training. Oh, and Briony is played by a third actress, Vanessa Redgrave, much later in her life. You wouldn’t think it would take three women to play one character but without the latter two we wouldn’t understand that Briony came to understand the need to make an atonement.

If you like the same scene being played more than once to get the perspective of different characters, non-linear time shifting and half spoken sentences weighty with unspoken emotion, this movie is your cup of English Tea served to you in a country garden. If you’re really into non-linear time shifting and a scene being played more than once, rent Christopher Nolan’s 2000 film “Memento” and you’ll see all you need to of that.

There’s a five minute tracking shot of Robbie when he and two army pals arrive at Dunkirk. Robbie walks through the tumult and turmoil in the time of the British evacuation. Director (Joe Wright) is extremely proud of the scene. It may be very cinematic but it’s pretty pointless in the context of the film. All that matters to the audience is that Robbie is at Dunkirk… and I’m not sure that couldn’t have been covered adequately in a line or two of expository dialog by another character.

So what’s to like? The actors all do a good job. Dario Marianelli blends the frequent presence of typewriters into a basis for a rhythm riff that cues the score in an interesting way. There were also a couple of occasions where a character does something on screen that becomes the last note in a score cue that I liked.

All in all what we have here is someone way too conscious that he is making a film rather than someone who is trying to tell a story well on film.

This is the director who made a version of “Pride and Prejudice” and was very proud of having done so without reading Jane Austen’s book. He claims that he read Ian McEwan’s book Atonement. I’m not sure which, if either, author got the greater benefit from Mr. Wright’s talent.