Mini Review - Atonement

I have just come from the cinema.
I have just seen “Atonement”
I am glad that I had a 30 minute walk home to recoup. Otherwise I was going to be bursting into tears.

I will keep this short.

Joe Wright has made a stunning movie. Stunning in story, stunning in execution and stunning in detail. Those who read movie blogs know enough about this film, so I needn’t go into the plot.
Two lives are devastated by a child and the lie she tells.

The look and feel of this film is perfect. Every detail is captured and bought to life, not in reality, but as memory. This is what I would picture in my head as I am reading it. The sun being brighter, people being more beautiful, colour vividly dancing across the screen.
The director of photography, Seamus McGarvey, deserves all the awards he has coming. The world he paints is both glorious and wretched. Every frame could be hung on your wall as art.
Likewise for Dario Marianelli for his ingenious use of score, using the typewriter, the thumping on a car bonnet, the stomping of feet to creat percussion that builds mounting tension to the beautiful score.

As for the cast.
Well…..
There are few words.
Should James McAvoy not get an Oscar nomination…well I will just loose faith. What he does here is beautiful work. His Robbie Turner will charm the knickers off you before breaking your heart.
Keira Knightley proves once again that she is a wonderful actress. She fills Cecillia with enough hard nose snobbishness that you begin to hate before she shows the flicker of tenderness that allows her to unravel. Her scene with McAvoy when they meet years later is full of pent up rage, love, passion and sorrow. Knightley expertly conveys every emotion on her beautiful face. Hers is not a showy role but long after the movie is over, it is her face you see.

The Briony’s were all excellent, but special attention should be given to Saoirse Ronan. Not since Anna Paquin in “The Piano” has a child on screen been so believably manipulative and yet naïve. Her Briony is full of entitlement and self-importance. Her over active imagination and need for childish revenge drives her to do an awful thing and Ronan plays it perfectly.

There is nothing more I can say about this film than go and see it. Treat yourself to one of the best films of the year.
A-