Aside from being the best advertisment for smoking, anorexia, and bias-cut fabrics that you will ever see, Atonement is a pretty weird film.
I read the book when it first came out several years ago, when I had a particularly vicious case of the flu (the same flu that was afflicting me when my mother came round and brought up my post, and I opened a completely unexpected bill for £10,000, and my mother thought I was delirious with fever, but in fact I was just a Camden Council leaseholder who was about to have a new roof that I didn't want.) I read it in a day, between fits of unconsciousness. I mention this to highlight the fact that I read it fast, which will become relevant later.
The opening section of Atonement, the movie, is glorious, particularly if you get any enjoyment out of seeing Keira Knightley in a wet, transparent slip / a swimsuit / any number of stunning floaty gowns that almost show her boobs, which, despite being a heterosexual woman, I do, even if just on the level of appreciation of beauty, and if you are a man, you will like even more so. (On the level of sexiness, we women get James McAvoy in a vest, which will satisfy many, but his arms aren't toned enough to fully convince as a gardener, he's on the short side for my lofty frame, and, well, I keep thinking of him as Mr Tumnus the faun in Narnia. Not a fantasy of mine.) It's filmed in an almost hallucinatory haze of heat, both literal and metaphorical, and plays on tiny details of differing perspectives, understandings and misunderstandings, relationships that shift in a glance exchanged, and so on. It's a soft, slow, beautiful slide into doom, at the end of which you might wish to consider going home.
You then get about sixteen hours of James McAvoy - not a remotely interesting character when taken out of the context of his relationships - marching through France with a loyal companion from the Dick van Dyke school of realistic cockneys saying Guvnor a lot. There's one particular shot that has already become famous, four unbroken minutes swooping and swirling up and down the beach at Dunkirk, which I think are supposed to signify the EPIC SCOPE of what happened there. Here's what I was thinking during those four minutes: "Wow, this is pretty impressive. Is that camera on rails? Of course it is. I wonder what the actors are doing when they're not in shot? How did they cue the horses? Where are the crew standing? Is James McAvoy going to be back in a minute? Oh yes, there he is. I wonder where he was standing in the meantime? I wonder how many takes this took? God, Dunkirk actually looks like quite a nice place for a holiday, with that Ferris wheel and those lovely old buildings. Wow, this really is a long shot." I haven't checked with Joe Wright but I am reasonably sure that this is not the effect intended.
After your sixteen hours of James McAvoy, you get about twelve hours of Romala Garai, looking creepily like the girl who played her character earlier on, and also largely uninteresting when taken out of the context of her relationships. There is some gruesome gore and quite a touching scene with a dying soldier, but to be honest, I already knew that war was grim and I really care a lot more about the situation set up in part one. If you want me to care about soldiers, the film should be about soldiers.
And somewhere within your sixteen hours of James McAvoy and twelve hours of Romala Garai, you get about four and half minutes of Keira Knightley in a nurse's uniform with a mullet perm.
The whole of this section feels a bit irrelevant and disjointed and never really gels with what we've seen in the first half. Now, looking back on my memories of the book, there is indeed an incredibly long stretch of James McAvoy, sorry, Robbie, battling his way through France, but the difference is that you can read that bit really fast rushing through to find out what happens next. Oh, and that there isn't a cheeky chappie saying Guvnor a lot, or if there is, he is more convincing in my imagination, and also the lead role is not played by a faun, though that's not really James McAvoy's fault, and he is quite a sexy faun. Also, and I did have a very high fever, but I do remember the two halves being more carefully balanced, and the London Briony (Garai) and Cecilie (Knightley) bits being more interesting. But I might be wrong about all of that. Still, as a book, it's not so stark when you lose entire characters for long stretches at a time, because the experience of reading is so different from watching a film - you immerse yourself in smaller chunks at a time, even when you are reading it as fast as I was, so each bit is your total reality at any given moment.
The last section of the film, however, is excellently handled, with Vanessa Redgrave, also cast with creepy accuracy as an old Briony, giving an interview about what has passed before and pulling it all together, and I cried so much that people in the cinema were actually worried about me. Vanessa Redgrave's career at the moment seems to be comprised entirely of cameo roles of people talking about the past and making me cry (see also: Venus) so I can't entirely rule out this being a Pavlovian reponse and that if I ran into Vanessa Redgrave at a cocktail party I wouldn't collapse weeping at her feet and get Martini in my hair.
All in all, though, before I went I thought that this is a book that would not work well as a film, and I still think so, no matter how well acted, how beautiful, how mesmerising the camerawork is, and how many times Keira Knightley can apply bright red lipstick and light a cigarette and dive into a fountain with the light behind her.
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