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'Atonement' is not enough

Kelly Jane Torrance
December 7, 2007

After a lavish reception in Europe, "Atonement" arrives stateside to take its place as one of the front-runners for the best-picture Oscar. It has all the ingredients of a leading nominee — impressively felt performances, beautifully photographed scenery, ambitious themes and an impeccable literary pedigree.

So why did I leave the film feeling strangely unsatisfied?

Based on the masterly, heartbreaking, manipulative 2001 novel by Ian McEwan, "Atonement" is just director Joe Wright's second film. His first, 2005's "Pride & Prejudice," also was an adaptation of a much-loved British novel. Like "Atonement," it also was dazzling on the surface, entertaining, classy and always very easy to watch — but ultimately lacking a strong sense of soul.

The new film begins on an English country estate in 1935. Thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan, easily holding her own against the stars) is a fledgling writer quick to observe but slow to understand.

When she watches her older sister Cecelia's (Keira Knightley) charged interactions with the housekeeper's son, Robbie Turner ("The Last King of Scotland's" James McAvoy, finally given the chance to prove he's a leading man) the pre-pubescent girl can't possibly see the undercurrents of love and desire.

Cecilia is only herself beginning to understand. She attended Cambridge with Robbie — her father paid his way — but barely spoke to him then, sticking to her familiar upper-class circles. Back home, she's forced to recognize there's something between the daughter of the house and the son of the housekeeper.

In one of the movie's most memorable scenes, vividly brought to life from the page, Robbie breaks an expensive vase, and Cecilia, stripping down to her slip, dives into a fountain to retrieve a piece of it. When Miss Knightley emerges from the water, her wet, flesh-colored underclothes almost completely transparent, we know exactly what the breathless Robbie is thinking. Cecilia, for her part, vents her confused feelings toward Robbie in anger.

Briony witnesses this important moment through her bedroom window and sees only that anger. When she later finds the pair making love against the wall in the library, she'll describe this passionate joining of two lovers as an "attack."

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