Atonement

Meddlesome child causes lifelong heartache: Saoirse Ronan and James McAvoy in Atonement
  • Director: Joe Wright
  • United Kingdom, 2007
  • 3 stars out of 5

When a young girl uses a series of events to doom the romance of the housekeeper’s son and her elder sister, the course of each of their lives is changed beyond foresight. So goes the story of Atonement, an adaptation of Ian McEwan’s manipulative novel by upcoming British director Joe Wright.

Whilst the first act concentrates on the minute tensions of a pre-war country residence, the remaining drama unfolds on a much broader and more popular canvas set among the young nurses of London’s war effort and the British Expeditionary Force’s evacuation of Dunkirk.

Though our three protagonists comfortably succeed in displacing themselves to a new time and place, the film as a whole still feels unbalanced when detailed portraits are swapped for sweeping landscapes. When all is finally explained with a typical McEwan twist in the dénouement, this beautifully shot, seriously acted film rather struggles for credibility like a swan taking flight.

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