Espiazione

We are such a fragile race, so affected by the shifts of a societal breeze. A child misinterprets what she sees and brings about the destruction of people she actually loves. So caught up in her dramatic wants and angry, she lies, and that lie haunts her for her remaining days. This is a movie version of a wonderful book, the best I read that year. It captures the pain and the need to make true restitution. The truth of the matter is that sometimes it just doesn't work that way. The characters come to realize that. It's a slice of life in wartime and all the chickens come home to roost. Probably the most gut wrenching thing is that the character that causes the most damage has great success in life, but carries around her guilt to her dying day. She is never allowed to truly enjoy things. This is a really fine movie and, except for some breaks in editing, does a nice job of presenting the issues in the novel.

I usually don't like watching novels turned into movies (specially when I liked the novel as much as I liked McEwan's "Atonement") but this was a really pleasant surprise. The plot is extraordinarily well adapted, leaving out what cannot possibly be included in a two-hour film, changing very few details to translate literary language to cinematographic language but sticking to the essence and the spirit of the novel.

I really believe that if you enjoyed McEwan's novel, you will fall for this beautiful film. If you have never read McEwan, you will fall for the intriguing and thrilling story written by this wonderful English novelist.

Please, don't miss this one!

At a gathering in a country house a jealous little girl meddles in her sister's love life, and things will never be the same ...

From an interesting novel that had an engrossing first half but, for me, trailed off in the second. So I had a different experience with the film adaptation, where the country house scenes are not quite satisfying but the following war story is brilliantly told. The narrator is a fascinating little character, but looking back I think her motivation needed to be colder and her atonement more problematic. In the end the story is wrapped up with a talking head, which I guess was unavoidable but not the mark of a great movie.

The long tracking shot on the beach at Dunkirk is amazing - not only a technical marvel (the amount of ground covered, the multiple interactions) but it creates a great sense of chaos and despair.

Performances are good, and it's no wonder people raved about Ronan. The music is excellent and plays about with the rhythm of a tapping type writer. Photography too, although I didn't get the sense of oppressive heat in the first act.

Overall: interesting and impressive, but some big flaws.

A budding young writer named Briony witnesses an innocent act she doesn't fully understand between her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and long-time family servant Robbie (James McAvoy) one restless summer day on her family's lavish country estate in 1935 England that leads to scandal in Joe Wright's dreadfully sumptuous adaptation of Ian McEwan's international best-selling novel, "Atonement." Four years later, all three characters try to find their own personal sense of peace or redemption during WWII.

This brief synopsis does nothing to explain the intricate complexities of the plot and actions that take place. Although Keira Knightley's performance is slightly off-putting due to the fact she appears like she just escaped from a concentration camp (surely young British socialites did not look like this in the 1930's), the stunning cast shows full range here racing through curious emotions: spite, lust, recklessness, and selfish wanton abandon. The facial expressions, especially from the children in the early scenes on the estate, are priceless. None of the characters are particularly sympathetic as they are often vain, self-absorbed, and quite silly in their drama, but they are fascinating to watch. The first third of the film is played like a "Masterpiece Theater" production of "The Great Gatsby" as seen through the eyes of Nancy Drew.

However, what makes "Atonement" soar is the impeccable direction of Joe Wright. He makes the most audacious coming-of-age as an auteur since Anthony Minghella delivered "The English Patient" back in 1996. Wright displays a near Kubrickian mastery of sound effects (notice the strikes of the typewriter keys) that transition from scene to scene and often bleed into the amazing score from Dario Marianelli. Wright also crafts a finely textured mise-en-scene that visually translates McEwan's richly composed story onto the screen with near note perfect fashion. Nothing can really prepare you for how well directed this film is until you see it, and the scene of the three soldiers arriving on the beach at the Dunkirk evacuation is one of the greatest stand alone unedited panning long shots ever captured on film. It left me gasping.

That scene leads to the heart of the film. The often clichéd romance at the core is trumped by Wright's depiction of Robbie, a single man forlorn and obsessed, his dizzying inner turmoil reflected against the grand canvas of a chaotic world at war. Likewise, Briony's redemption comes not in the too-clever conclusion at the end of the film, but in the intimate and symbolic confessional at the bedside of a dying French soldier. These moments leave lasting impressions, and left me imagining that if Joe Wright were to ever adapt Irene Nemiorovsky's "Suite Francaise" onto the silver screen, he would knock it so far out of the park it would leave "Gone With Wind" spinning in its gilded Hollywood grave.

The superb Ian McEwan book translated into cold beautiful images by the startling Joe Wright and scriptwriter Christopher Hampton. The result is a series of powerful rushes and abrupt stops. A pacing that, perhaps, is a bit too self conscious for its own good doesn't help us to connect the emotional dots. I had the feeling I had lost something in the love story of the protagonists - something that didn't happen to me reading the book. By the time the "injustice" takes place I was taken by the pain of the injustice but not by Knightley and McAvoy's liaison. Their love story is left to its own devices. The beauty of the images is overwhelming and the assuredness of Joe Wright at his second feature after the, much better, "Pride and Prejudice" keeps you going. The score tends to be monotonous and irritating but in spite of all that I intend to see "Atonement" again and I would recommend it with just the above mentioned reservations.