I don’t like drama. Like my feelings on Radiohead, I can appreciate the genius and artistry of a movie without really liking it. I have said on more than one occasion, “It’s a great movie, it’s just not that good.” I don’t know if that’s a sign of my maturity as a viewer, that I can be discerning without discreditting, or if I’m still just a goddamn 15 year old boy who wants boobies and blood and potty humor.
At first, I was ready to just slog off Atonement as another fucking Oscar bait. And frankly, I’m sick to fucking death of the whole Jane Austen, let’s put everyone in yellows and whites, tennis playing, manicured lawns, tea and dinner party movies. But I guess this is the price I pay for every Live Free or Die Hard. I will feed you big dumb action, but then you must remember Cecil.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the period. For it’s literature. Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, and Oscar Wilde. I don’t think you can be a bitchy playwright and not genuflect before the altar of his fabulosity. But every year, they dust off the pinafores, lace up the corsets, and saddle up the horse carriage. So from the opening strains of country life in the sunlit mansion proper, I figure, here we fucking go again. Bleh.
But I must say, the script is smart. It’s easy to just turn a dull eye to the screen and assume you just don’t have enough culture to appreciate this. Yes, art film people, you are so wise, and I am so lame. I like crappy indie films, and you appreciate ceen-eh-mah. Bravo. But, Ronald Harwood has got something here. He hasn’t written a love story. It’s a beautiful, selfish, clever lie.
The acting is terrific. I think the Keira Knightley nod might have been a little overwrought, because James McAvoy is doing all the heavy lifting in the film. But they do have a wonderful and believable chemistry. The movie is well-shot and well-thought out. It will assuredly win many awards, because this is the sort of heaving accent pic that has lonely librarian types reaching over their many, many cats for the lacy handkerchiefs.
If the period piece is your cup of tea, then Atonement is your scone and saucer. It’s got the stirring war footage, and does a more effective job of showing the actual horror of war without blowing up a single Arab or flying a single kite. The camera pans back at one point to show a field full of dead bodies. It’s stark and moving. But then again, it’s supposed to be.
The movie does a phenomenal job of playing prestidigitator. Waving its hand over here so you don’t see them palming the coin. And the coin is the truth. Much like No Country For Old Men, this is going to have people making the GUH? face. I did. I did both times. But if you sit down, and you actually think about it, you get it. It all slowly reveals. Most people don’t care to do that. Thinking is what made me hate the Transformers movie. There were so many logic gaps once I actually sat down with it. First of all: I don’t care how awesome and realistic your shiny robots look, if you fucking shoot them all in immediate close up, it looks like an epileptic Japanese anime. Second, and most of all: the Allspark. So this is what created all the Transformers, Autobots and Decepticons. Then it gets stolen, and ends up on Earth, and now both sides need to get it, because it can destroy the world. By making more Transformers out of soda machines and cell phones. But they are all only bad. It can’t make good Transformers? And then if you take it and shove it inside a Transformer, it kills them, but also deactivates the Allspark? What? So while everyone just wants to say, “Dude, wasn’t that fucking Mountain Dew shooter robot fucking rad?” I’m like, “NO!”
Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is, take this with a grain of salt if you choose to take it at all. And just remember McAvoy was very talented in this when we are all crucifying him for Wanted.
