MikePadgett.com

• Director: Joe Wright
• United Kingdom, 2007
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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.

• Director: Robert Duvall
• United States, 1997
• 

It’s amazing The Apostle isn’t better known, despite an Oscar nomination for Duvall’s intense, virtuoso acting performance. Duvall also wrote and directed his labour of love, and financed it himself, having been unable to find a backer throughout the 80s.

Perhaps the material scared them away. A denizen of the weird and colourful world of the evangelical South, preacher Sonny Dewey commits murder and resolves to do good until his inevitable capture by the authorities. In the wrong hands, this might have been cynical or overly dry, but Duvall’s rendering is full of poise and sensitivity.

His preacher is approaching retirement age, crackling with the electric energy of a mission, but more than a little unnerving in private moments. It’s a delicate balance to achieve but Duvall manages to pull it off with something akin to zealous devotion.

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 1988
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This is a decorated film - five Goyas and an Oscar nomination - and an international breakthrough for the director, but it didn’t sit too well with me.

Almodóvar’s screwball comedy cocktail has all of the lurid colour but lacks the bitter edge that adds bite to his more emotive works. After a promising start, the pace suddenly feels rather rushed, with too much plot crammed into 90 minutes.

Nevertheless, there are some outstanding features. When protagonist Pepa, a dubbing actor, shows up at work she must dub Joan Crawford in the key scene in Johnny Guitar, her deserting lover (and colleague) having already done the Sterling Hayden part. It’s a rare soulful moment, masterfully delivered by Carmen Maura leading another solid cast: Banderas would make a great post-pubescent, oversexed Adrian Mole and Julieta Serrano is delightfully insane as Lucía.