"Atonement" (2007)

When Briony (Saoirse Ronan), age 13, sees her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and Robbie (James McAvoy), a servant’s son, at the fountain on the family’s estate she misinterprets what is happening. To make her conclusions worse, Briony reads a letter from Robbie intended for Cecilia, ultimatly adding two and two together and getting eight. When her cousin is raped, out of childish and slightly petty jealousy, she falsely tells the police that it was Robbie she saw committing the crime. Her actions seperate the pair and change all their lives in a bigger way than she could ever have known. Based on a novel of the same name by Ian McEwan, and directed by Joe Wright.

This is such a stunning film. It really, really is - in every sense. One of my favourite movies definately. I absolutely love it! It’s brilliantly made. Amazingly written. I don’t think any other film has brought out of me quite the same intense reactions. There were moments I found myself actually screaming at the screen over the injustice of what was happening. It’s not every movie that could evoke such vigorous emotion! This certainly does.

I loved the depth with which all the characters were written. The more I think about this the more fascinated I become with this film. There's so much background to each of their lives and personalities, it's not all what you see before you! The detail is intricate. They almost felt like real people somehow and not just characters. I got really attached to them throughout the film. Which is probably why it evoked such reactions.... But I loved it for this reason.

I really love the opening of the film. It tells the audience so much through so little and so subtly. We are presented with the front view of a Victorian style dollhouse. This image immediately suggests, wealth, establishment, and because it’s a dollhouse, we know we’re dealing with a child. The shot moves downward towards a two lines of animals all arranged very precisely. This incidentally mirrors Briony’s personality extremely well I think. It tells us she’s a very particular and precise child who likes things done a certain way. She’s uptight to a certain extent…which then becomes evident a few shots later when she’s dictating who should play what in her play. Even the room around the animals is otherwise meticulously tidy. It’s interesting that the first main focus, the main action, should be a typewriter since this is a common image right the way through the film and occurs at the most prominent moments of the story. As well as this, it was a refreshingly creative way of introducing her name, by having it on the cover of her play. And then even the cut to the next shot of her walking out of the room is fantastic. It’s very abrupt, deliberate, mirroring the way in which she is thinking. She’s just finished her play, her mind has been revolving around nothing but this for goodness knows how long so is undoubtedly racing. She wants to show off what she has done, she’s a girl on a mission with a one track mind, and this cut emphasizes and expresses this quality to her character incredibly well I think. The director and director of photography wanted to establish a kind of restlessness and “creative energy” about Briony’s character. This is achieved through this kind of dynamism in the camera. There is a “syncopathatic rhythm” and the camera really does seem to move quite a lot and quite abruptly in the subsequent opening frames of the film. There’s a lot of Steadicam (which is a lightweight mounting for a film camera which keeps it steady for filming when handheld or moving) and tracking shots (when the camera follows a person or an object, physically moving with said subject) in the house. Briony kind of pulls or drags the camera around with her, which again is something that mirrors her personality to the audience, despite her not even opening her mouth much yet! The directing is just fascinating.

   

 

Briony’s character though just made me so, so mad there are actually no words. Yet, while I don’t like her character, she is still one of the more interesting. I got the impression she liked to be in control, in charge, the ring leader (as suggested in the scene when she’s rallying her cousins into acting out the screenplay she’d just written) and when she doesn’t feel in charge, she becomes anxious and evidently jumps to childish conclusions. I just found it interesting trying to understand what could have made her do what she did. Saoirse Ronan is a great actress and plays her brilliantly. She does realise later on how awful a thing she did, thus spending the rest of the film and her life attempting to assuage her guilt. In fact, there was actually a moment in which she is vigorously rubbing and washing her hands as though trying to get dirt off that isn’t really there. I was reminded of Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, and I wonder if that’s the inspiration behind this moment.

Robbie Turner is one of the most remarkable wonderful fictional characters created. He's just one of those rare kinds of people who has throughout his life tried to see the good in everyone and everything. There isn't a harmful bone in his body, which makes what happens to him so excruciatingly unfair. This awful thing happens to him for no significant or worthy reason, and it's so hard for him to understand why. His perspective of the world just changes as the film progresses. There's a scene later on in the film which demonstrates these aspects of his character incredibly well. In the scene we see all these little school girls sprawled on the ground having died. It's an equally appalling scene as it is creepy! What made the scene though was Robbie's expression and the single tear that really visibly rolls down his cheek. It's a really powerful moment and one that shows more than any other how much he is struggling not only with what's happening around him with the war etc, but also with his own perception of the world. He had started the movie as such an optimistic character and now everything he knew has been contradicted - through no fault of his own. It's the age old question 'why do bad things happen to good people?'. I think this moment just says so much through so little, it's fantastic. I think for this reason, it was actually one of my favourite scenes in the movie.

There's another moment of Robbie's later on during his time in Dunkirk that I love the way it's filmed. Robbie climbs down these steps on his own and ends up walking passed this huge cinema screen. I adore this shot. I think it's brilliant because you've got these huge faces, black and white, then his small silhouette against the screen. I feel like it's mirroring maybe how he feels at that moment: small against the atrocity happening around him. I just think it's a beautiful shot. It is also significant since the characters on the screen are seen in an embrace and he watches them sadly, thinking of Cecilia. That should be him and Cecelia and he shouldn't be here.

Continuing on from this, there is another scene that I really love even though it's quite sad, Robbie walks into this other room alone. The music is lovely, it's just a gentle piano, quietly playing. We can also hear the rumpus going on outside, bombs and fires etc. Then he hears his mother's voice (whom he hasn't seen in years) and he turns to see her standing in the doorway. Exhausted, he sort of falls back into the seat behind him and she washes his feet. He explains that he needs to return to Cecelia to put things right and that she love him and he loves her. The mother simply smiles. But this is all merely him hallucinating from fatigue. Because of this, the scene is shot in such a way that it looks and feels very surreal. The background around him is sort of blurry, while just his face and his mother's face are clear. Robbie is a completely different person to what he was at the beginning of the film, but what has never faltered is his astounding hope for the future. He keeps his ambition to return home right the way through the film, never questioning it. He will come home. There is no question. 

 He is then seen walking out of this room, his friend having caught up to him again. He seems dazed but walks purposefully. Joe Wright is very clever in that when two actors are walking side by side he has one of them move around more, maybe walk circles around the other just so it's not boring for the audience. We see this tactic here and also as Robbie and Ceclia walk together towards the fountain earlier on in the film.

Cecelia's character is quite interesting because you can't say from the beginning that she's entirely a nice person. In the beginning she is quite snobby. There's a moment when her and Briony's brother, Leon, arrives home and the taxi-driver is bringing in his bags and she quite snobbishly/snootily tells him where to put them.

Cecelia is also quite snobby towards Robbie at the beginning. She appears disgruntled at the fact he's been given money by her father to go to study medicine despite being of no relation to the family, bar their gardener. Robbie has always been much closer to their father than the Tallis children were, despite his difference in class, which he has never allowed to be an issue. He and Cecelia grew up together and were close friends until she went to college when they drifted apart to the point where they barely speak. Briony remarks on this early on in the film. Robbie can't understand why she's suddenly behaving that bit more snootily towards him and is annoyed with her for it. It could be assumed that he always had feelings for her but didn't really decide so until he was older. She makes this break through herself during the film and realises her frustration with Robbie was on account of these feelings. From here on Cecelia is seen as a much more loving and kinder character.

One scene of hers, well and Robbie's, worth noting takes place after Robbie has been released from prison on the condition he must go to war. Cecelia, now working as a nurse and hasn't seen or heard from her family since that fateful night, comes to visit him. They haven't seen in each other in a few years but have stayed in contact through letters. They are very quiet at first. Cecelia puts her hand on his but he pulls his away and avoids the silence by asking her where she's been living. It's quite a tense scene but important I think because their silence and short sentences are saying so much. This scene also shows how brilliant an actress Keira Knightly is. She just plays this scene amazingly.

What's so remarkable about the way she and James McAvoy play the characters is the fact they're actually only together in the film for at the most three scenes, yet it doesn't feel like this at all since we are so convinced of the love they have for each other. The chemistry between these two is incredible. They work so well together. In an interview James McAvoy said they watched the 1945 film "Brief Encounter" quite a lot in order to get the particular accent required for the characters just right. I love that film and I adore the way they speak in it.

James McAvoy is an incredible actor. He is one of, if not my favourite actor and another who really deserves an Oscar but has yet to even be nominated. It's actually ridiculous. He really is amazingly talented. I think this film is one of his best roles. This statement can be proven through a scene that happens later in the film when Robbie has come home for a piece of time from the war to visit Cecelia. Briony, now older, also happens to visit Cecelia, having not seen her sister in years. Understandably, Robbie is none too pleased to see her. How he doesn't kill her is beyond me! It's the only scene we see Robbie actually angry. It's a really powerful scene I think in the film because of this. Robbie is such a docile character, as I've said, who wouldn't lift a finger to anyone so for him to shout at someone in the way he does just shows how horrible a time he's been through. He is a completely different character to the Robbie Turner we opened the film with. James McAvoy is just incredible in this scene. Really, really fantastic.

There is a five minute Steadicam shot in the middle of the film during the Dunkirk scenes…which I imagine was a bit of pressure for the cast to do since five minutes is quite a long time really just filming without the ability to pause and cut. But it was certainly worth it and extremely effective. It gives a huge insight into what it was really like for those soldiers waiting on that beach to be evacuated. To be able to do this shot is incredible because I imagine it’s a very hard thing to pull off – but they did it perfectly. What’s also remarkable about these scenes is the amount of extras! There must have been thousands and more or less each of them would have had to have a costume made as there weren’t enough already, and all would have required makeup and…you know what, everyone who was involved in these scenes are just incredible.

I love the cinematography in this film. There's another shot somewhere where Robbie is walking through a field of poppies during his time in the war. The sun is quite bright and he's walking towards it, so you can only really see his silhouette at the side of the shot. Just between the lighting, the huge colour of all the poppies and his position on the screen, I think it's a beautiful shot and it was one that really stood out to me.

I love the editing too. Particularly in the scene in which Robbie has just handed Briony the letter to give to Cecilia. As soon as she runs away thterrough the field again to give it to her sister, a piano starts playing the same notes repeatedly, rising the tension as he watches her run away. The camera moves to the back of his head and suddenly the music stops. There's a pause of silence in which he utters her name. Then quick flash-back shots are shown back and forth between the motions he took after writing the letter, and Briony running through the tall grass with the letter against ominous music. We see the letter on his desk, then it goes back to him watching Briony and there's a kind of pause, before he suddenly shouts "BRIONY!" having realised his mistake. We see Briony rushing into a room to open the letter and the music resumes once again. We have a close up to her face, then a close up to the words being typed on the page, one letter at a time, the music pausing between each and getting louder with each. Then back to silence again and a wide shot of Briony still reading the letter. The damage has been done. The events which follow have been effectively set in motion. This editing is fantastic, so tense.

Sticking with the editing, I also like how the film goes back and forth from Briony’s point of view of a particular moment or time period in their lives, to Cecilia and Robbie’s. For example with the fountain scene, we were first shown how it looked to Briony from the window, and then shown what had actually happened. I guess it did help in understanding why she might have misconstrued the situation because in all honesty, as much as I hate to admit it, I can see why she could think what she thought - but that is entirely beside the point. I liked this feature because it allowed all the characters to be portrayed and understood equally, which made the film and the story more powerful. I also liked the underwater shots in this scene.

The lighting and set design are other aspects which are actually very interesting. In the film’s opening, the day has started off very wonderful; it’s the hottest day of the year, therefore, all the rooms are brightly lit, brightly coloured. Yet then as soon as the big conundrum happens, the big twist in the story’s plot, suddenly the rooms become very dark, and darker monochrome colours are what are visible.

There's a scene when Robbie is arrested and we see Cecelia running out of the house from his point of view. There is smoke and as it clears we see Cecelia highlighted in a kind of red light from the police car's lights. I really like this shot.

The music too was another aspect that I loved. There's one in particular that includes this type-writer sound. It thought it so clever how the typewriter was heard getting louder at the some of the most pivotal moments in the movie, sort of telling the audience, ok, these are the key moments, these are the ones to remember. It hones into the fact also that this ultimately becomes Briony's story that she's typing out and you can almost get a sense of the frustration or mounting guilt she feels remembering these particular moments. I thought this was clever. The film features "Clair De Lune" which is a piece I really like too.

LISTEN HERE: (Atonement Theme)

The whole film is just fantastic. And the more I think about it, the more enthralled I become. It's one of those films that I think stays with you for days after. (It certainly did for me!) There’s a bit of a twist so by the ending credits I was absolutely shouting at the screen on the verge of tears. I think it’s the only film where I literally screamed out “Nooooooo!” I just felt so angry and disillusioned. (My brother actually rushed into my room to see what was after happening to me) The entire outcome was just so unnecessary in my opinion. So heartbreaking. – But this kind of reaction just proves how well made it was, I guess! Joe Wright described it as a very brutal film and that this is true for the author’s (Ian McEwan) writing:”It kind of lulls you into lyrical passages. And then suddenly slams you into the C word or slams you into the cut of Dunkirk.” I think this is a perfect explanation.

Joe Wright is a really brilliant director. Really, really good. I love the different techniques, the different things he does with this film..I think his reasons for going about each scene, each shot, in the way that he did, is really fascinating. 

I'm just...I'm enthralled with this movie, to be honest. Everything about it. It’s such a tragic story. I mean, I think after watching it I felt so disillusioned and angry my faith in humanity was somewhat deflated for a few days! But it's written and produced so, so well. It’s really fantastic. I hope I haven’t spoiled it now for those who haven’t watched it. It would be well worth a watch. It is without a doubt one of the best films out there.

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