Attonement

Unfilmable eh?

I think we should all pay attention to Joe Wright. He is a director, a young director, of a callibre I have seen outside the veteran precense of the likes of Spielberg, Coppala, Scorecese, etc.

Attonement is a film I need to see again. Not because I am not sure I liked it, but because it demands a second viewing to absorb all its glory. Is that a criticism? Maybe. But I am looking forawrd to a second go at it, so maybe it's part of the brilliance?

With muse Keira Knightly in hand, Wright tells us the story not of Knightly's character Cecelia, but of her sister Briony, played with sheer brilliance by all three actors in the role (Sioarce Ronan, Ramola Gairi and Vanessa Redgrave). The story is one of confusion and imagination and an imagination so mature that in such an inmature mind can have devestating concequences.

I need not go into the plot - it is thick in detail and I would not do it justice and I think it would be an injustice to you to ruin your experience.

I will say that like Pride and Prejudice, this is a beautiful looking film supported by great performances. While I typically prefer to opposite, it is nice to see once in a while that someone working today has those classic sensibilities and the passion to recreate them.

While the first act and devesating final act were well paced and served their purpose, the middle act seems to be it may have been better served in a book where words could mean to much more than a look. In a story about carefully or poorly chosen words, we are operating in a medium that depends on looks and without the proper insight in some ways I felt a little jaded following the film. I thought I deserved more of the truth and wasn't as sympathetic to Briony as I felt I should have been. Maybe I wasn't meant to. I wanted to forgive her, but all the time I kept thinking "What if". So for a film entitled Atonement, I'm not sure it was ever fully realized, but the effort was sure there.

Again, with a second look and knowing how it ends, perhaps the clues are in fact in the performance and carry more weight, but I took the scenes at face value and needed more.

Having said that, I would still very much recommend this film and you just might see it sneak into a top ten list...

4 out of 5