I shouldn’t have liked this movie
Watching Atonement is like watching one of those old black-and-white movies everybody’s extolling, but you’re probably not into watching something with zero sex or violence at the moment. Then one day you finally pushed yourself to chuck that Casablanca DVD into the player, and wham! The credits roll and your jaw’s scraping the floor, because you’ve just been handed your ass by a fifty-year-old movie in a cynical 21st century. Atonement isn’t fifty years old, but its snotty-Englishness packaging didn’t quite prepare me for the aforementioned ass-serving.
How exactly did this movie delivered the sucker punch and turned into the BMF’s movie of the year? Admittedly, underestimating the movie probably enhanced its impact on me. It wouldn’t be spoiling too much to mention that it’s a tragic love story about upper-class Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and the help’s son, Robbie (James McAvoy), set in pre-WWII England. In any good romance story, there must be a foil for the lovers, and in Atonement it’s Cecilia’s precocious pre-teen sister, Briony (Saoirse Ronan). Her imagination runs a little too wild for her own good, which resulted in a misunderstanding that severely jeopardised the lives of the two people she loves. As the title implies, of course she’s going to try to atone for her mistake. Whether she manages to, or if she does, how she does it, that’s the “fun” part. That’s the sucker punch.
My apologies to those who anticipated the crowning of some badass movie, but the BMF is neither averse to amorous flicks nor has ever denied liking them. If a romantic tripe like Titanic can attain critical and commercial success (my utter respect for director James Cameron notwithstanding), that must mean that there's a significant portion of us macho hetero guys out there who secretly enjoyed Titanic too. I bet you will also secretly enjoy Atonement as well, which has a far more resonant, heart-rending tale in comparison. Apart from being well-made and well-scored, there is no other movie I’ve seen in 2007 that delivered Atonement’s emotional wallop (that is too spoiler-rific to explain), which is why it gets my award. - BMF
Directed by Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice (2005), The End) and screenplay by Christopher Hampton (Imagining Argentina, The Quiet American). Stars James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, Brenda Blethyn, Juno Temple, Benedict Cumberbatch and Vanessa Redgrave. Based on the novel by Ian McEwan. |
