Official Synopsis:
From the award-winning director of Pride & Prejudice comes a stunning, critically acclaimed epic story of love. When a young girl catches her sister in a passionate embrace with a childhood friend, her jealousy drives her to tell a lie that will irrevocably change the course of all their lives forever. Academy Award nominee Keira Knightley and James McAvoy lead an all-star cast in the film critics are calling "the year's best picture" (Thelma Adams, US Weekly).

Our Take:
If you were to define “Oscar Bait” ten years ago, Atonement would have been the very epitome of that term. It has everything old Oscar voters love: a big epic scope, a love story, and it’s all done in the old-time style of filmmaking. However, ever since the rise in the independent film movement and as the older Oscar voters make way for the younger ones, movies like No Country for Old Men have become front runners while Atonement sits by the wayside. Luckily for Atonement, there are still enough old-school Oscar voters to get it a nomination for best picture but not any real hope of winning. Was this film deserving of its best picture nod? I would say no. Is it a well-made modernized epic love story that is worth watching? It most definitely is.

The story is basically a triangle relationship between three characters, Briony, Robbie and Cecilia. It tells their story over a five-year period during World War II in England. The film starts in the English countryside in a giant estate right on the brink of WWII. The estate is so big that it needs its own community of gardeners, cooks, maids, and housekeepers. There’s Briony, the younger sister played by Saoirse Ronan, and Cecilia, the oldest played by Kiera Knightley; they are sisters living with their large extended family in this house. Then there’s Robbie, one of the housekeepers played by James McAvoy, who is madly in love with Cecilia. With their social class between them they can’t act upon their feelings so they are forced to manifest them through playful, argumentative banter. Briony sees this and mistakes it for something that it’s not. Then, through a series of events, Briony becomes convinced that Robbie is sex-crazed. All of these events play out with the film jumping around time; we get to see the same event told through different perspectives.

This all leads to a sexual assault on one of the younger members of the family that Briony witnesses and becomes convinced that Robbie is the perpetrator of. Robbie is sent off to jail, splitting him up with his love Cecilia, and this sets up the rest of the movie, telling this tale of one little girl’s misunderstanding and how it ruined all of their lives. The movie goes straight from the arrest into the second part of the story taking place five years later with Robbie choosing to go to the army instead of jail. And this is where the film goes a bit array.

The first act of the film is superbly done with its playing with time and the evolution of a great misunderstanding. Once the war hits, the movie starts to become less emotionally involving. It becomes somewhat of a rip off of other epic war romances, including some scenes with James McAvoy and Kiera Knightly that turn a bit towards the melodramatic. I found myself become exceedingly more bored and uninterested. It’s not until we meet Briony in nursing school, five years later, that the film starts to pick up. We get to see to what extent the pain she feels about what she has done. The third act emerges with a great cameo by Vanessa Redgrave that really packs an emotional punch.

Director Joe Wright does a fabulous job with the shots, the playing with time, and most notably the cinematography, especially during a one shot long take that takes place on a beach filled with an entire army, with its horses and the wounded. His real talent is taking these old, classic-style Hollywood type films and making them modern without being too flashy or drawing attention to itself. You also have a nice original score with samples of the sound of a typewriter mixed in, which I found quite inventive. The real problem is with the script. It isn’t the quality that’s the problem, as it is well written, but rather the adaptation process which I thought could have used more time.

Universal has done a nice job with the DVD. You have two special features that are pretty long and in-depth as well as a commentary track; it’s all you need to satisfy your bonus feature craving.

* Bringing the Past to Life (26 minutes) – A pretty in-depth making-of

* From Novel to Screen (5 minutes) – A featurette explaining the adaptation process of the book to film.

* Deleted Scenes.

* Commentary with Director Joe Wright.

When Atonement was released, I remember hearing somewhere that it was said that the book was un-adaptable. Judging from the movie, I would agree that it probably can’t be adapted into a two-hour film structure. Truth be told, Atonement needed to be longer or a mini series, as it simply feels too condensed. The other major issue is that the second half just becomes too conventional in its epic Hollywood way and you lose emotional connection with the characters. The third act however, really takes it home, making you wish the second act was that much better. I didn’t think this film held up to any of the other Oscar nominees and better films should have been nominated, but it is still a solid piece of work and is definitely worth checking out.

RECOMMENDED!

Overall Picture:
Movie: B+
DVD: B

- Adam Rettek
Staff Writer