Director: Joe Wright Stars: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Brenda BlethynStudio: Focus Features Atonement is a 2007 film adaptation of Ian McEwan's critically acclaimed novel of the same name, directed by Joe Wright, and based on a screenplay by Christopher Hampton. It was produced by Working Title Films and filmed throughout the summer of 2006 in Great Britain and France, starring James McAvoy and Keira Knightley. Distributed worldwide by Universal Studios, with minor releases through other divisions, the film was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on September 7, 2007, and in North America on December 7, 2007.
As the opening film of the 2007 Venice International Film Festival, Atonement made Wright at the age of 35 the youngest director ever to open this prestigious festival. The film also opened the 2007 Vancouver International Film Festival.
Plot The film comprises four parts, corresponding to the four parts of the novel. Some scenes are shown several times from different perspectives.
Briony Tallis, 13, an aspiring writer, and her adult sister Cecilia, are two of three children of a well-to-do English family. Robbie Turner, about Cecilia's age, is a servant's son close to the family. He was college-educated, apparently headed to medical school. Tallis cousins Lola Quincey and her younger twin brothers are visiting the Tallis family amidst their parents' divorce. Paul Marshall is a visiting friend of the girls' brother, Leon; who owns a chocolate factory that is acquiring a contract to produce chocolate bars for army rations. They all gather in the Tallis home to celebrate Leon's return.
Briony misinterprets altercations between Cecilia and Robbie as sexual aggression by Robbie. A misunderstanding with a letter of apology to Cecilia written by Robbie and delivered by Briony, who reads it, furthers Briony's concerns. Cecilia realises that she has deep feelings for Robbie, and worries that Briony will voice her concerns to the family.
That evening, Briony encounters Cecilia and Robbie in a sexual embrace in the library, and misinterprets it as sexual assault by Robbie. At dinner, Briony becomes verbally aggressive with Robbie, but before she can accuse him, the adults notice that the twins have not shown up. Searching for them, a note is discovered, saying that they are running away to go home. The adults break up to search for the twins, but Briony sets out to find them. She stumbles upon a tuxedoed man who appears to be raping Lola. She immediately accuses Robbie. When Robbie later returns, with the twins safely in tow, he is arrested and jailed.
The movie then moves four years later, to the opening phases of the Second World War. Robbie is a private in the British Expeditionary Force, hiding in a French attic with two fellow soldiers cut off from their units by the German Blitzkrieg. Here the dénouement of the rape accusation is shown in dialogue and flashback. With only his mother and Cecilia protesting his innocence, he was convicted and imprisoned, but granted parole on condition that he enlists. Before he was deployed, he was reunited with Cecilia in London, where they renewed their love. Briony had apologised to Cecilia in a letter and joined the nursing corps as an act of atonement.
Robbie arrives at the beaches of Dunkirk, where he is waiting to be evacuated. He is told that all the soldiers are to leave tomorrow and he falls asleep. At the hospital, Briony experiences the horror of the evacuation, and in one scene, a mortally wounded French soldier dies in her arms.
Back in London, after seeing a newsreel showing chocolate magnate, Paul Marshall, profiting from the war, Briony attends the wedding of Lola and Paul Marshall. Finally, Briony summons up the certitude to visit Cecilia's flat, apologizing to her directly, and recanting her accusation. Briony witnesses Robbie awaking in Cecilia's bedroom, at the commotion of their argument, and he begins to assault Briony with anger for his imprisonment (due almost solely to her testimony). Cecilia calms him and they persuade her to tell her family, and the authorities, of Robbie's innocence in retribution. Robbie insists that she write to him (without 'embellishment or adjectives') precisely what happened, and why she did it, and to tell a solicitor the same thing. While they surmise that a servant boy is the culprit, Briony reveals that she knows Marshall was the attacker. She informs them of the marriage, which carries the explicit implication that Lola will now never testify against Paul Marshall, in her own assault. The scene shifts to an elderly Briony being interviewed about her latest novel, "Atonement". Over the course of an emotional interview, Briony reveals that she is dying of vascular dementia, and that this novel is her last, but that she began it first. Briony reveals that, while it is autobiographical, the ending of the story actually was changed. In actuality, she never could conjure the courage to see her sister. Robbie had died of septic shock (on the last night of the evacuation at Dunkirk) and her sister was killed in the bursting of the pipes at Balham tube station. Briony expresses remorse and says that this novel with a different ending was her chance to give them the hope and the happiness she stole that they deserved. The film closes with a scene of a simple, joyful moment that Cecilia and Robbie might have had, if things had played out differently. The background is taken from a postcard, of an English cliff-side beach, that Cecilia had once sent to Robbie.
Distribution
The film opened the 2007 Venice International Film Festival, making Wright, at the age of 35, the youngest director ever to be honored so. The film also opened the 2007 Vancouver International Film Festival. Atonement was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on September 7, 2007, and in North America on December 7, 2007. Worldwide distribution was managed by Universal Studios, with minor releases through other divisions. Critical reception The film has received generally positive reviews. As of December 28, 2007, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes records that 85% of 151 critics gave the film positive reviews, with a consensus that the film's strong performances, brilliant cinematography, and lovely score make for a very successful adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel. Another review aggregator, Metacritic records an average score of 85%, based on 36 reviews. Roger Ebert gave it a four star review saying that the movie was one of the year's best films, a certain best picture nominee. The film was listed as on Empire Magazine's top 25 films of 2007.
On December 13, 2007 it received 7 Golden Globe nominations, more than any other film nominated for the 65th Golden Globe Awards. The film is also being billed as a possible front-runner for the Oscars.
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