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Movies Forum Index » International Movies Forum » _Atonement_
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 Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 9:31 pm |
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Very much a mixed bag. I had high hopes for it, given
Joe Wright's very dynamic and cinematically sophisticated
_Pride and Prejudice_. This is after all based on my favorite
novel of recent years; when I was reading it on a long
flight home I could barely put the book down. The slow
burn build-up of the first third of the film is a success, I
think; it is hard to juggle all the characters and threads, but
the recurring focus on a few key images (particularly
Cecilia's venus moment) bring things into sharp focus
(it was written to be just so cinematic by Ian McEwan, of
course). But many scenes are shot with a summer haze,
with very soft focus and oversell the romanticism and
short-change the uneasiness (everyone keeps talking
about the heat but the picture is so prettified no one
breaks a sweat -- even in the throes of passion in the
library). The haziness unfortuantely lingers in the
Dunkirk retreat scenes. The 5 minute tracking shot
is justly celebrated, but the rest of that segment is
much-interrupted by flashbacks and Robby's dream
sequences. (In the book it is one uninterrupted endurance
test that physically strains the reader's nerve, daring
him or her to keep up with the devastating retreat; it
is one of the strongest part of the book.) The hospital
scenes are excellent, however; they may just the
best part of the film. Here Keira Knightly proves herself
a tremendous screen presence and well as a talented
actress; her imperiousness and the little quivers of her
facial expressions are fascinating to watch. And yet
the most memorable actor in the film may be Gina
McGee, who puts in a cameo as the head nurse; her
stoic, stone-faced, stiff-upper-lipped response to the
carnage of evacuated soldiers is a welcome contrast
to the oversentimentalized expressions all around her.
The epilogue seems unnecessarily truncated; there is
a lot of interesting stuff about how the manuscript
got received by publishers that never makes it into the
film, although Vanessa Redgrave is paramount as the
dying Briony. It could have been so much better.
All the same, I hope it does well in the awards season. |
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