The Macroblog

Atonement (2007)

© Working Title Films

Starring: James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Romola Garai, Saoirse Ronan,Vanessa Redgrave, Juno Temple, and Benedict Cumberbatch
Screenplay by: Christopher Hampton
Based on: Atonement by Ian McEwan

The Story

1935, on the hottest summer day, Briony sees Cecilia, her sister, undress in front of their longtime servant’s son, Robbie. Because of her immaturity, Briony interprets adult intentions differently and completely misunderstands it. The succeeding actions of the three — and a prior incident between Briony and Robbie — would result into Briony’s crime, a crime that would intertwine the lives of the three and which she would eventually try to atone for years as a nurse during wartime. Robbie is sent to prison, and eventually released, on the exchange of serving for the British Army — virtually severing almost all of his connections to his dear Cecilia.

My Take

In the first part, the time goes back numerous times to tell the story in the perspective of another character. In both book and movie versions, there’s almost no transition from one perspective to another, so if you aren’t paying attention to details, you’ll surely get lost in this labyrinthine story. This could either be viewed as a flaw or brilliantness. It makes you think where one perspective ends, and another one starts. But obviously, that makes it complicated.

The story could feel really heavy and boring, especially at the middle where Robbie is trying to escape from France back to England. I know some people who were not able to finish the movie because of this. In my case, I almost stopped reading the novel (I read it first before watching the movie adaptation). McEwan’s heavy writing could be simply termed as lullaby. It took me almost two weeks to finish it, and in my standards, that means it took me a long while. Although the cogwheel of this tale is Briony’s crime, the story as a whole is also dependent to some sequences from that boring part, remove them and the story wouldn’t be as powerful as it should. Well, I’m really glad that I was able to finish the book.

The beauty of the story lies at the last few pages of the book or minutes of the film where the reader or the viewer respectively is presented two different versions of the ending. The twist at the end is just so big that it will surely change your opinion on Ian McEwan’s magnificent novel. But the icing on the top is that whichever version you choose, you won’t escape the sadness that the story would bring to you.

The actors who played the main characters were well versed in what they were doing. The acting is just so good that you can feel that it really happened. I was really impressed with the mad acting skills of James McAvoy in this one. He’s a really damn good actor. Oh, and I’m sure that you’ll notice the music that was used in the movie. It’s so original, right? Who knew that the sound of typewriter could be used as background music, hu? Dario Marianelli (the composer) is inventive and an outright genius.

The Better Version

It’s hard to pick which is the better version. The movie adaptation is so close to the book that I can’t decide. It’s one of the rare movie adaptations that was really faithful to the novel. And although the twist at the end was presented differently in the two versions — a family reunion in the book, and an interview in the movie — it doesn’t make a big difference. So be sure to check both! But should they release another Atonement movie, I hope they’ll combine the two.

Tearmometer

Prepare at least eight and a half rolls of tissue, you don’t want your clothes to get soaked from tears. In other words, I’m rating this as 8.5 out of 10. It could have easily scored 10, but owing to the fact that there are boring scenes, I had to deduct a few points.