Movie Maven

In this day and age, one becomes a connoisseur of adapted screenplays. The good. The bad. The updated Shakespeare teen comedy. The Harry Potters. They are money in the bank for the production companies, and delicious fodder for book lovers, who wail against the cheapening of great literature, rending their clothes and gnashing their teeth.

Out of this distracted melee comes "Atonement", the adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel of the same name. It would be criminal to discuss the plot in any detail in you haven't read the book. Set in the mid-1930s, the first half of the film takes place during one fateful day, when fanciful young writer Briony (Saorise Ronan) witnesses an altercation between her sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and their gardener Robbie (James McAvoy). She terribly mistakes the situation, and her mistake becomes an event that shapes all their lives. The second half of the film finds them all in very different circumstances, during the British retreat from France. It's a truly brilliant book, and director Joe Wright, who helmed the recent adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice", shows again his agility for capturing not just the plot and characters of a novel, but also it's essence.

Wright does magical things with natural light, turning a precocious 12-year-old into something out of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and generally transforming the English countryside into something simultaneously idyllic and unsettling. As the ethereal Briony skips through the sparkling woods around her house, and her sister basks in a bathing suit in the dappled sunlight, you know it won't be long before something truly awful happens. The music is nothing less than perfect; the pounding keys of a typewriter mingle with the conventional violins and piano, and the beat that results is steady and maddening in a way. It's the audio embodiment of these characters marching blindly into disaster.

Parts of the second half of the film are problematic. The depiction of the hellish conditions at the Bray Dunes in Dunkirk is spectacular in the conventional way, but one does feel a strange sense of disappointment looking back on it. It misses the slightly otherworldly quality of the first half of the film, though this can still be observed in other scenes, particularly in the hospital where the older Briony works. In many ways it looks like every other mass scene of carnage, with digitized soldiers and little actual substance. Some of the most harrowing pieces of McEwan's novel are his descriptions of the Bray Dunes, and though Wright has the noise and chaos of the physical place, it lacks McEwan's subtle examinations of the soldiers' inner chaos.

Where Wright and his performers succeed most is in the restraint of the performances. Knightley is exceptional, playing a wealthy young woman with all the education in the world, but, as her social status dictates, with absolutely nothing to do. McAvoy, while not as mature an actor, is still able to command the screen (and he doesn't look so bad either). But perhaps most risky of all, Wright doesn't make you look at them all the time. Briony, both as a child and in her older manifestation, is what you look at. Her character is the most provocative; she can lead your sympathies one minute, and draw ire the next. Ronan has been nominated for an Oscar for her performance as 12-year-old Briony, and indeed she seems to exude an intensity and depth far beyond her years.

The film is not as "good" as the novel, perhaps. But this of course makes the assumption that a story can work the same way, effectively, in every medium available. It is appropriate that an adaptation is sometimes referred to as a "translation." There are always things that are lost in translation. Wright, I think, understands this concept. It is the mood, the tone, and the heart of a story that is important. Bring these things to the film, and the plot will follow.

(File Photo Courtesy of the New York Post)