Best Picture 2008? - Atonement (Part 1 of 5)

Sean opines...

Atonement is the inheritor of the drawing room romance where the main characters are faced with many obstacles to their love. Girl and boy love each other from afar despite their station, yet use class status to restrain their love. Girl enjoys her friendship with her sister unaware of her younger siblings puppy love for the man of her longing. Misunderstanding ensues. Someone pays for it all and the girl and boy end up searching for each other while the cataylst of the misunderstanding is haunted by her guilt. Beautiful clothes are worn. English estates and war are used as back drops. And a classical score swoons to it all.

We have seen it many times before, all tied up in a beautiful package. Clothes and sets are impeccable and throw us back into the films of the 1940s where suffering in restrained beauty was a staple and star crossed romance filled the seats. We still celebrate these films today even though they have been copied and copied in scope and drama as the years have gone on.  If I had to select two to check out I would recommend Brief Encounter and Now, Voyager as the best examples of this style.  A few modern classics have continued this restraint by bodice or suffering in mink style.  Mechant and Ivory perfected it in their great run with A Room With a View, Howards End, and The Remains of The Day (and for the gay set Maurice).  Anthony Minghella's (who makes a cameo in this film) stab with his trilogy of films The English Patient, The Talented Mr Ripley, and Cold Mountain emulated this style with mixed success.  A more modern success would be Sophia Coppola's Lost In Translation.  

Unfortunately, Atonement strains under this history.  Keira Knightly and James McAvoy are brilliant as the star crossed lovers in what they are given to do with the material. The scene I would most recommend is when the two meet in the middle of the film as the WWII is beginning; she is a nurse and he is about to be shipped to France. The delicate body language in this scene is incredible between the two.  These two stars, especially Knightly, are worthy successors to the golden age of restrained lovers.  But they are given such corny and overused lines as "Come back to me" that you just fly back to the disaster of Cold Mountain (if you saw it) and cringe or are quickly reminded of where you saw their scene before in black and white or the Merchant and Ivory set. The crisp color and vaseline of the cinematography helps ease the pain with a beautiful gloss, but the complication of story and situation has been done better. No fault to the actors or craftsmen mind you. As the clip above can show, the film breathes lovers' restraint and enormous visual scope. Saorise Ronan makes you believe in her character as the rival sister with such talent it makes her entirely worthy of her Oscar nomination.  The green dress Knightly wears at a critical point in the film is stunning and worthy of its own award.  And my favorite (only because it makes a huge impact but can be said by the most ladylike of women) and most horrible of curse words is a star in the film. But alas the film really doesn't deserve the celebration. It will be forgotten I believe as film history continues and be a brief "he/she was in that?" comment as the stars in the film move on to better things.