Atonement

Reviewed by:
Pete Hammond

Some critics have already been calling this period love story "swooningly romantic," so that ought to clue you in right there that this chick-lit flick may not be the holiday movie of your dreams. This English drama, based on a hugely successful best-selling novel by Ian McEwan, spans several decades, starting in 1935. The film is less concerned with conflict surrounding World War II, where much of it is set, and more with the one between two young lovers (Keira Knightley, James McAvoy) and the demon child Briony (13-year-old Saoirse Ronan), who uses her young writer's imagination to accuse older sister Keira's squeeze of a crime he didn't commit. He is the educated son of the wealthy family's housekeeper. When he crosses class differences and falls for her sis, Briony can't take it, since she has a schoolgirl crush on him. So she invents a story. This is bad enough, but events spiral out of control: He is arrested, they are separated by war and hardship, and Briony's lie takes on even more far-reaching tragic consequences. This single act haunts the girl as she grows up to become a Red Cross nurse (Romola Garai takes over the role) during the war and later in life a successful author (Vanessa Redgrave as the old Briony), who finally tries to find atonement in telling the truth after several decades. If you can slog through the slower-moving Masterpiece Theatre–style home story, Joe Wright's stunning direction of the quintessential WW II battle of Dunkirk is riveting to watch, including one classic uninterrupted five-minute tracking shot of soldiers at war that almost redeems the whole film, an English Patient–style epic that never really ignites.

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