vernon film society
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ATONEMENT
Director: Joe WrightCast: James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Romola Garai, Saoirse Ronan, Vanessa Redgrave
Run Time: 123 minutes
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Rating: 14A (Sexually suggestive scene, coarse language)
"This is one of the year's best films, a certain best picture nominee." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Reviews: http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/atonement
Ian McEwan‘s bestselling and critically praised novel ATONEMENT has been brought to the screen by the duo of director Joe Wright (whose debut film PRIDE AND PREJUDICE was a Gala presentation at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival®) and playwright Christopher Hampton (best known for LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES).
Fully mining the emotional terrain of the novel, the film, which was a Special Presentation at the 2007 Festival, also effectively visualizes both pre-and post-war British society, as well as the harrowing events of the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation. Hampton has also managed to find a structure in which to contain McEwan‘s ex-traordinary story of a young girl‘s indiscretion, which rips apart many lives and ultimately scars her own.
ATONEMENT spans several decades and captures its characters at different points in their lives. It begins in 1935 amid the rural beauty of a Britain unaware of future horrors. Still, uncertainty troubles this idyllic surface. The well-to-do Tallis family awaits the return of their eldest son to their country estate. Especially eager to see him is their youngest daughter, Briony (Saoirse Ronan, DEATH DE-FYING ACTS), the precocious thirteen-year-old who centres the film. Meanwhile, Cecilia (Keira Knightley, SILK, PRIDE AND PREJU-DICE), Briony‘s elder sister, wrestles with suppressed emotions she feels for Robbie (James McAvoy, BECOMING JANE, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND), a man who does not belong to her social class. He is the son of one of the family‘s servants, and Mr. Tallis has paid for his Cambridge education. When events come to a dramatic head, the fallout profoundly changes the lives of everyone at the family mansion. Briony finds herself in the midst of the drama that unfolds, but her childish involvement has long-term repercussions. While the drama of the war with Germany overshadows the characters‘ more private troubles, Briony, Cecilia and Robbie discover in their differ-ent ways that the past can never go away. As Robbie gets caught up in the horrors of the retreat to Dunkirk, the sisters must try to put their lives back together. Wright has done a superb job lifting prose from page to screen. He has also surrounded himself with a cast who relish the emotional complexities of McEwan‘s tale of youthful jealousy.
"Rarely has a book sprung so vividly to life, but also worked so enthrallingly in pure movie terms, as with ATONEMENT." – Derek Elley, Variety
