I am sucker for any movie set during World War II. And I'm a sucker for Keira Knightly (Pirates of the Caribbean movies). And had this movie missed any 2 of these elements, it probably would have been one that you could just forget about.
In Atonement, Keira Knightly stars as Cecilia Tallis, the older sister of Briony Tallis (Saorise Ronan, the 13 year-old version of Briony, who absolutely sucks as an actress, as does Romola Garai, the adult who plays the older Briony later in life.) Briony sees several events at their palatial home during the late 1930's that shape her views and opinions of others.
The movie shows several events from Briony's point of view and they do seem scandalous. However, the events are then replayed from the point of view of Cecilia, and they are not quite what they seem. In what will probably be the most memorable scene from the movie, Knightly dives into a large fountain in a sheer slip to retrieve a piece of a broken vase, only to get out of the fountain to reveal what she's got. It doesn't help Robbie's (James McAvoy) case later in the movie when he writes an apology to Cecilia for their unfortunate encounter earlier in the day, but then also writes a second erotically-charged version in which he writes Cecilia that he wants to taste her cunt (the movie's words, not mine), which happens to be the version that he gives to Briony to give to Cecilia.
The movie flashes forward and backward constantly, giving the viewer an absolute dismal time of trying to keep up with events. On a nighttime search for the missing twins, a common event in many classic English movies, Briony witnesses a rape of a young girl, but only briefly gets a glimpse of the perpetrator. She immediately suspects Robbie whom she has seen with her sister several times in the misinterpreted moments. Hours later, Robbie returns with the missing twins looking bewildered at the lack of enthusiasm for the safe return of the young lads. He's immediately arrested and sent to prison for several years.
The movie transitions to later in life and Robbie is serving in the military trying to escape Europe during the evacuation of Dunkirk. Cecilia and Briony are both nurses, though Cecilia refuses to speak to her sister. Briony at this point has a sparking drive to deliver penance to Robbie and Cecilia realizing her mistake. Neither will have anything to do with her and she never sees them again.
The movie ends with Cecilia as an old woman talking to a reporter about her latest and final book, Atonement. She tells how her sister died during the bombing of London and Robbie died during the evacuation. So, ironically, the miserable wretched Cecilia, who wrongly accused Robbie of raping a girl and denied her sister true love, gets to live a long life while everyone else died. How wonderful.
As mentioned previously, the historical reference to the evacuation of Dunkirk sparked my interest, as did the passionate love scene between Knightly and McAvoy, as witnessed by Cecilia.
Overall, I gave this movie 3 stars. The Briony parts of the Oscar-nominated movie are clear 1 or 2 star parts, the Cecilia parts are definitely 5 star parts, so I averaged the two ratings. The movie is 2 hours long and is rated R for containing some disturbing war images, and some undisturbing sexual images.
