Atonement

Atonement (2007) Directed by Joe Wright, from the novel by Ian McEwan.

Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) is a very bright, very imaginative 13 year old girl, born into an affluent English family, living in 1935. She is finishing her first play as the movie starts, the rhythm of the typewriter mirrored by her very precise and determined steps through the house. Briony is a girl in the grip of powerful emotions. Her hormones are at war with the carefully cultivated reserve she has been instilled with, and she has a crush on Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) the promising son of one of the servants, educated by the Tallis family, giving him a leg up the social ladder.

However, Robbie has a crush on Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) one that very well may be returned. Briony sees an odd scene between her sister and Robbie from her bedroom window. It looks blatantly sensual to the young girl's eyes, but later, as the viewer is treated to a closer look, it becomes clear Briony's take is mistaken.

The next part of the tragedy unfolds as Robbie writes a note to Cecilia before dinner. On version, typed, is Robbie's musings and includes an anatomical Anglo-Saxon word of four letters. The one he meant to send was handwritten and formal. Unfortunately, the correct message was left on the desk, and the scandalous one entrusted to Briony to deliver.

Nor is this the only source of Briony's problems: they have guests. Lola Quincey (Juno Temple) and her twin brothers, Perroit and Jackson. (Felix and Charlie von Simson) They are guests due to their parents divorce. Lola, a gorgeous nymph, bosses and manipulates all around her, even stealing Briony's part in her own play. Exasperated by her guests, Briony is also envious of Lola's ability to manipulate others.

Enter the last problem, Briony's brother Leon (Patrick Kennedy) and his friend Paul Marshall (Benedict Cumberbatch) Paul makes chocolate; his sugar coated bars are due to be placed in every ration pack for the army. When you see him say to Lola, "Bite it...you have to bite it...." There is an eerie creepiness that forebodes dark deeds.

Warning; Here there be Spoilers.

As if Briony's ego had not taken enough of a pounding, she catches her sister and Robbie in a very compromising position. With typical English manners (shame?) they act as though nothing had happened, and thereby seal their doom.

When the twins run away, search parties are dispatched. But what Briony discovers is someone raping Lola.

Guess who she blames?

Four years later, Robbie is released from prison to serve in the army.

Spoilers End

In France, Robbie is involved in the disastrous push that led to the Dunkirk evacuation. Wounded, he and two fellow soldiers make their way to the beach at Dunkirk, crossing a hostile countryside. Once there, there is an incredible scene, taking them in one shot the length of that crowded beach. Three thousand men await rescue. (In a side bar; one, they say the day is 1 June, 1940, and there are 3000 men waiting to be evacuated. In point of fact, on the first there were in excess of 110,000 men. There were 3,000+ on the 4 June, the last day of the evacuation. Second, the evacuation of Dunkirk was one of the pivotal points of the war. If the weather had not been unusually calm, not all the men would have made it back across the channel and with England fighting with a severely depleted army, WWII might have gone to the Germans.)

Meanwhile, in England, Cecilia has become a nurse. We never actually see her nursing, we merely know that she rejected her family after the incident and lives humbly. She writes to Robbie, telling of her life, her love for him, and that Briony has tried to contact her.

And what of Briony? Now played by Romala Garai, Briony has turned down her spot at Cambridge, and has also become a nurse. Unlike her sister, we see the life she leads, tending to the wounded, and the dieing. Gone is the privileged child. Here is a serious woman, overwhelmed by the death that constantly surrounds her. As always, her typewriter is still her best friend.

Faced with immediate horrors on a constant basis, the mental blocks around past horrors are crumbling like the walls of a sand castle at high tide. Briony comes to a full realization of what happened that night so long ago, and the full import of her part in events. What she chooses to do about it leads us to the thunderous climax of this movie.

One of the things that carry us along towards this point is the score. It won the Oscar and it is easy to see why. The manual typewriter becomes a percussion instrument, weaving its beat into the music, and carried along by it after the keys are stilled. The same staccato beats are tapped out by feet and rail, but always, you hear the keys.

Something else that builds the story is the use of water. If there is water in a scene in 1935 it is still and smooth and something will disturb it, making ripples. After 1940, the water is never still, any ripples lost in the chaotic surge, a million stones causing billions of ripples, a billion raindrops creating a trillion ripples.

But the end is calm. The last scene sees Briony as an old woman, and here she is played by the legendary Vanessa Redgrave. A single scene, short, calm, but it is the movie, and Ms. Redgrave is incredible in it.

What is the meaning of Atonement? Is it an achievable concept? The past, done, can not be undone, so is it possible to atone for our mistakes? This movie deals with that question. I am not sure it answers it.