From Novel to Film; A Tragic Love Story

From Joe Wright, director of Pride and Prejudice, comes a brilliant adaptation of the novel, Atonement, by Ian McEwan. From the very beginning of this film, the music compliments the film well. It heightens every small sound, incorporating mundane noises such that come from a typewriter, some footsteps, a slamming window to create an intensely charged atmosphere. The music is very much in sync with the characters emotions as it often dramatically rises, falls, or stops with the character. The musical theme of the movie tends to be one of longing and regret sometimes intensified by the dark passion in the relationship between the characters. At one point in the movie, there is a surprising sad then happy twist to the otherwise steady melodic theme. A group of soldiers sing a hymn watching the ocean among the general chaos of the army’s encampment, shortly after, we are introduced to an makeshift pub with the army patrons singing a joyful song. The chosen musical themes compliment the scenery well.

            The scenery chosen for this film is also very brilliant. We can see from the very beginning the director’s affinity for beautiful landscapes. Often used as filler in other films, in Atonement, these landscapes helped set the mood of the piece. For example, from the beginning, the rich lawns with fountains and flowers framed by untamed trees and streams shows the darker side of this seemingly lighthearted film. Also, when Robbie comes upon the sight of hundreds of soldiers upon the beach with the water and the light in the horizon, it is breathtaking and magnificent. Robbie walking through the fields in France while Cecilia waits at a cottage by the ocean gives us a powerful message of the beauty of the world and of love which is torn apart by the war. The scenery hints that everything beautiful is from nature, while the impure is found in humans by misunderstandings and arguments.

The general plot is that of the innocent yet sexually charged love between Cecilia (Keira Knightly) and Robbie (James McAvoy), which is misunderstood by the 12 year old sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan). After Briony comes upon a rape scene, she falsely accuses Robbie of being a sex fiend, sealing his fate away from his love. Further in the film, there is a scene that Robbie is walking through the apple orchard and comes upon rows of dead young girls is ironic as it was a young girl who sealed his fate to the army.

Knightly and McAvoy seem to contain genuine chemistry on stage and portray the love story in the manner that it should be taken. Although Ronan is a rare find and is brilliant as a girl of 12 years, the character that replaced her as the 18 year old and then as the old woman do not seem to match. Romola Garai as the 18 year old Briony acts the script well, but seems unattached and blank, not like the remorseful character she is trying to portray. Yet overall the novel was captured well in the film. Wright did a brilliant job of staying true to the plot while highlighting the emotions not usually visible in adaptations of novels.