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The Pride & Prejudice team returns with another literary adaptation, an elusive love story that avoids the usual cliches
Coitus Interruptus:
Atonement
12-07-07 "Knight Thoughts" web exclusive review
By Richard Knight, Jr.
Atonement
12-07-07 "Knight Thoughts" web exclusive review
By Richard Knight, Jr.
Keira Knightley has risen quickly to stardom thanks in part to her bony beauty, because of her high profile role in the Pirates of the
Caribbean franchise, and because of the interesting roles she's chosen in indie features. I must be honest - most of these parts -
Domino (especially) - have not registered for me. Like many a young actor with the ability to suddenly pick and choose roles, she's
opted for a lot of sick at the soul characters - those depressing, self-destructive head cases that actors love and audiences usually
do not. Or rather, this audience member usually does not. But with Pride & Prejudice, in which Knightley took on the spunky heroine
of Jane Austen's oft-filmed classic literary delight, I found the actress in full bloom. Director Joe Wright's assured touch with the
material, the fresh spin he and screenwriter Deborah Moggach took with the novel seemed to release Knightley and I found her, and
the film, completely captivating. I want to quickly give a shout out to another Wright collaborator, Dario Marianelli, the composer of
the music who did an exquisite job with the film and does so again with Atonement. Once again he has set the perfect tone at the
outset of the film with his ominous but beautiful piano melody which contrasts with the insistent typewriter of 13 year-old Briony
Tallis, the adolescent girl that will set a tragedy in motion. The story takes place at the end of the 1930s on one of those impossibly
lavish English estates. We are in Merchant-Ivory territory and in the hands of a storyteller who spins out his seemingly simple yet
complex tale in beautiful and at times, emotionally devastating set pieces. This is a world where one gesture, one word, makes all
the difference in the lives of its characters. In other words, another literary work brought thrillingly to live.
Knightley plays Cecila, Briony's older, much more sophisticated sister who is very much aware of Robbie Turner, the gardener's son
(James McAvoy), but who is also very much aware of the huge class distinction between them. Cecila and Briony are from wealth and
privilege and Robbie, well, Robbie is the gardener's son. But that hasn't stopped both sisters from falling for him (not hard to see
why, with his hair dyed jet black and closely cropped McAvoy is a doll) but when Briony walks in on he and Cecila in a clinch she's
insane with an unrealized jealousy. When a visiting cousin is molested on the grounds of the family's huge estate it takes Briony no
time at all to convince the authorities that Robbie was the culprit. Her foolish lie sets in motion events that will bring tragedy on the
lovers and on herself.
Wright tells this story through Briony's prism and it cuts back and forth between events in the future and the past, the real and the
imagined. It is this latter that comforts Briony when her actions come back to haunt her. As she has grown up to become a nurse
during the war the horrors she witnesses are seen as a kind of punishment for destroying her sister's life. There's much more to
Wright's tale - and when Vanessa Redgrave turns up as Briony at the end of her life - even more levels are revealed. Before that
there are many unforgettable set pieces - McAvoy and his two soldier friends walking through the destruction at Dunkirk, McAvoy and
Knightley in that clinch in the library - her green satin dress impossibly sensual, a search for a pair of lost red haired twins on the
estate at night by flashlight - visually the movie matches the sensual, tragic nature of the material. This is a terrific, old fashioned,
love story weepie that fans of classic films will adore and Knightley and McAvoy and the rest of the cast do excellent work in this high
falutin' but most enjoyable picture.
Caribbean franchise, and because of the interesting roles she's chosen in indie features. I must be honest - most of these parts -
Domino (especially) - have not registered for me. Like many a young actor with the ability to suddenly pick and choose roles, she's
opted for a lot of sick at the soul characters - those depressing, self-destructive head cases that actors love and audiences usually
do not. Or rather, this audience member usually does not. But with Pride & Prejudice, in which Knightley took on the spunky heroine
of Jane Austen's oft-filmed classic literary delight, I found the actress in full bloom. Director Joe Wright's assured touch with the
material, the fresh spin he and screenwriter Deborah Moggach took with the novel seemed to release Knightley and I found her, and
the film, completely captivating. I want to quickly give a shout out to another Wright collaborator, Dario Marianelli, the composer of
the music who did an exquisite job with the film and does so again with Atonement. Once again he has set the perfect tone at the
outset of the film with his ominous but beautiful piano melody which contrasts with the insistent typewriter of 13 year-old Briony
Tallis, the adolescent girl that will set a tragedy in motion. The story takes place at the end of the 1930s on one of those impossibly
lavish English estates. We are in Merchant-Ivory territory and in the hands of a storyteller who spins out his seemingly simple yet
complex tale in beautiful and at times, emotionally devastating set pieces. This is a world where one gesture, one word, makes all
the difference in the lives of its characters. In other words, another literary work brought thrillingly to live.
Knightley plays Cecila, Briony's older, much more sophisticated sister who is very much aware of Robbie Turner, the gardener's son
(James McAvoy), but who is also very much aware of the huge class distinction between them. Cecila and Briony are from wealth and
privilege and Robbie, well, Robbie is the gardener's son. But that hasn't stopped both sisters from falling for him (not hard to see
why, with his hair dyed jet black and closely cropped McAvoy is a doll) but when Briony walks in on he and Cecila in a clinch she's
insane with an unrealized jealousy. When a visiting cousin is molested on the grounds of the family's huge estate it takes Briony no
time at all to convince the authorities that Robbie was the culprit. Her foolish lie sets in motion events that will bring tragedy on the
lovers and on herself.
Wright tells this story through Briony's prism and it cuts back and forth between events in the future and the past, the real and the
imagined. It is this latter that comforts Briony when her actions come back to haunt her. As she has grown up to become a nurse
during the war the horrors she witnesses are seen as a kind of punishment for destroying her sister's life. There's much more to
Wright's tale - and when Vanessa Redgrave turns up as Briony at the end of her life - even more levels are revealed. Before that
there are many unforgettable set pieces - McAvoy and his two soldier friends walking through the destruction at Dunkirk, McAvoy and
Knightley in that clinch in the library - her green satin dress impossibly sensual, a search for a pair of lost red haired twins on the
estate at night by flashlight - visually the movie matches the sensual, tragic nature of the material. This is a terrific, old fashioned,
love story weepie that fans of classic films will adore and Knightley and McAvoy and the rest of the cast do excellent work in this high
falutin' but most enjoyable picture.
