Andre Previn to Eric Morecombe, “you’re playing all the wrong notes.” Eric Morecombe, lifting the Maestro up onto his toes by his DJ lapels, “no, I’m playing all the right notes……but not necessarily in the right order.” Joe Wright has gone one better in this extraordinarily bad film – he has managed to get all the wrong notes in the wrong order. When he sees what has been done to his book Ian McEwan must be spitting blood all the way to the bank.

Critical reaction to this film beggars belief. Bad is bad and pretending otherwise does not seem to me to do any worthwhile service to the British Film Industry or our genuine home-grown talent including that misused in this chocolate box of a movie..

There is only one scene in Atonement that does not seem to me contrived, clichéd, false, and acted in a style a bewildering mixture of Invasion of The Body Snatchers and Brief Encounter. That’s some spread. This scene at a mortally wounded French soldier’s bedside comes an hour and a half in and is the first in all that time not to be drenched in the most intrusive, overblown musical score I have ever heard in a movie. Even Brief Encounter only had snatches of Rachmaninov used to good romantic effect. In every other scene in Atonement either tinkling piano or surging strings tell us how to feel about every emotion displayed. As the scenes themselves are already shot with a mind-numbing literalness, the overall effect is the aesthetic equivalent of trying to read McEwan’s infinitely better book printed completely in bold italicised capitals, finally underlined in case we didn’t get the stress. Indeed this is the first movie I have ever seen with sound effects so precise and persistent they drive you nuts.

McEwan for me is a cold, but always interesting writer. Above all he is a craftsman. He must be furious at the sheer ineptitude of this effort to bring his book to life on the screen. It was always a big ask. McEwan is fascinated by people rather as a pathologist is: he loves to cut and dig, open up and find out how we work, what makes us tick. He often, as here and certainly in Enduring Love, sets up the dramatic context with a narrative device. He is also a writer interested in ideas which he develops through his carefully constructed narratives. Here I suppose the distinction between fictional and aesthetic truth and truthfulness. And I felt from the book at least, the essentially existential nature of moral choice. In an instant of time one can make a choice that is both wrong and irremediable. A moment that defines the lives to follow.

In Atonement ‘too-imaginative-for-her-own-good’ would-be writer Briony Tallis (13) sees through a window her older sister Cecilia, ‘C’ (Keira Knightley) in a sexually ambiguous scene with up-from-the-servants’-quarters Robbie Turner. We later discover that pubescent Briony has ‘feelings’ for Robbie herself. When later asked by Robbie to deliver a letter to ‘C’, Briony opens it first and sees a crude sexually explicit note Robbie has mistakenly sealed in the envelope in place of the more respectful note he meant Briony to deliver. The effect of the note on Cecilia is a rush of emotion that turns her on; but on Briony an explosion of confused feelings most of which she is as yet too young to fully understand that turns her off. When she then witnesses Robbie and C giving the fullest expression to the sexual feelings aroused by the mistakenly delivered version of the note, Briony adjudges Robbie to be sexually obsessed.

Lola and twins Jackson and Pierrot are relations of Briony’s age being sheltered from the effects of their parents’ divorce. When the twins decide to run away in the night a search party is set up to scour the grounds. In the darkness Briony interrupts Lola being raped in the woods. The man runs off. Lola affects not to know who he was and in the pivotal moment of the book and the film, Briony says it was Robbie and that she saw him clearly. She sticks to this story throughout police questioning and Robbie is eventually imprisoned for rape. Five years later, on the cusp of World War 2, he is given a choice – enlist or stay in jail. So we find the disgraced Robbie trapped in the disastrous retreat from Dunkirk. Cecilia has always believed in him and has never spoken to Briony again. Their parents have only too readily accepted Robbie’s guilt although the now 18 year-old has admitted that she lied.

This is a tough device to sell in. McEwan just about succeeds in the book but has the benefit of all the little accumulated details that the literary form gives him to draw the reader into the fascinating consequences rather than the implausibility of the initial set up. Wright’s Direction is far too pedestrian and literal to convey any of this air of credibility. His efforts are not helped by quite bewildering direction of his actor’s performances. Briony scuttles about in a strange jerky straight line gait like a child superstitiously trying to miss cracks in the pavement. Both at 13 and 18 she is given to zombie-like empty stares into camera usually captured by a seemingly endless series of slow zooms into close-up that just convey a sense of Invasion of The Body Snatchers type menace. Keira Knightley and McAvoy talk with accents so cut glass and affected they make dear old Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson sound ‘plebby’. The whole thing plays out like an OTT scene from a Noel Coward play. And all the time that bloody music surges and flows on. And on. And on.

The scenes on the beach at Dunkirk and later in blitzed London are farcical in their clichéd imagery. Little cockney sparra speeches, arthritic old ladies pushing antique prams, a cockney kid who looked as if he needed to be taught how to skip etc etc. The already totally false scenes on Dunkirk beach are given an added sense of surrealism when somehow, almost magically Robbie finds himself in a cellar where a full-size cinema screen is playing a romantic Hollywood movie. The sole purpose for this appears to be that Wright can then show us the real Robbie silhouetted against the fictional romance of the images behind him. This isn’t metaphorical is just dumb.

There is hardly a scene in the movie where Wright denies himself a chocolate-box shot; ‘C’ sitting by the sea with a magnificent sea swept Dover Cliffs behind her looks like an outtake from Ryan’s Daughter; a gently turning Ferris Wheel on the Dunkirk beach; McAvoy framed by a sunset etc etc. His camera constantly tracks and pans and zooms for absolutely no coherent dramatic purpose and the within-the-scene ‘cut’ seems to have eluded Editor Paul Tothill completely.

Having failed even to hint at any of the interesting ideas that lie at the heart of McEwan’s interesting book, Wright tries to tack these on the end with a gratuitous TV interview with the aging, dying, Briony promoting her last book ‘Atonement’ on TV. Vanessa Redgrave does her best with this but it is such a palpable act of narrative desperation, the heart sinks. But worse is to come, God forbid that I should ruin the elegaicly romantic ending but it is both shameless and shameful.

My wife asked on the way home how a negative review helped anyone. There’s a pompous answer to that I’ll spare you but given the extraordinary complimentary press this tosh has been given – you at least have an opposing view. I may not be ‘right’ and many of you will disagree – but for me this one is a really disappointing mess.

Yoy've really caught my interest on this one, Zettel, especially as all the critics are raving and I'm thinking do I really want to go and hear the cut glass accents of that bony girl again. I bet a whole film goes by without anyone suggesting she might have TB or something.However, it will be interesting to compare with 'Lady Chatterley'.

Sheila

Sheila


Be interested in your views. I wasmuchmore impressed by Lady C than you were. In my view thre really in no comparison on any cinematic criteria one shooses to apply.

regards

Z

I'm just back from seeing 'Atonement,' which reminded me of 'Titanic' - plenty of money spent on set pieces, such as the beach at Dunkirk and a central love affair between an uppercruster and a commoner. Success depended on rooting for the two central players but the female lead was weak so it all depended on James MacEvoy.

Watching, I was reminded vaguely of the book, which I enjoyed more than the film but that's not saying much.

It was obvious from the start that the director had no faith in Keira Knightley's acting as we saw a lot of her back when she was saying her lines or her voice came floating from off-screen. I read it was called ' a modern Brief Encounter' but that film involved a lot of close-ups from the Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson to ratchet up the emotional tension, and not just in the clinches. Romola Garai, the nurse in the middle section gave a very credible performance,I thought, and was a logical development from the catatonic girl in the earlier scenes.

In fact the hospital sequence were my favourite bits, especially Briony with her typewriter in the attic. The bright -eyed girl playing her nursing colleague was a perfect foil,making the scene very watchable. James MacEvoy was adequate for the part - his eyes are very good at expressing sadness and he has a wide range.One feels he will improve, especially as he did better here than in 'The Last King of Scotland', admittedly overshadowed by Forrest Whittaker.

My main complaint was there was far too much time spent walking round the sets, as if the film maker thought, 'Hell, I've gone to the trouble to get them built,so the audience is going to get the Full Monty, like it or not.' There was a central square landing in the upper-class mansion which was almost worn out, ditto the corridors and aisles of St Thomas's. The Dunkirk wandering seemed to go on forever.

For me it was a real coup, or saver, to bring in Vanessa Redgrave at the end, an actress who can sustain a close up, so the film ended on an acting high-note - the only part that raised a tear from me. That woman's worth her weight in gold. I liked the hospital bedside scene, too, especially the tension of the unbandaging, but the man went from reasonably lucid to dead far too quickly. (I'm not giving anything away here, because it was obvious when Sister Geena McKee (wasted) told her to go and hold his hand 'for a few minutes' that he didn't have long.)

I agree the soundtrack as intrusive at times and seemed to be making up for inner turmoil the actors failed to express, or when they were just directed to look through windows or into the middle distance. I've seen Romola Garai turn in a memorable performance in a few films - she was good as the heroine of 'I Capture the Castle', for instance. A saving grace of the soundtrack as far as I was concerned was that it provided distraction during the perambulations.

I agree with regard to Dunkirk and that business with soldiers on the mini-carousel, the singing of 'Make Me a Vessel for Your Peace', (unlikely choice)etc. on the broken-down bandstand was laughable. As for the closing beach scene, that alone should condemn the director to ten years of making TV commercials. Who knows, he might then make a half-way decent Ridley Scott.

My husband like the film. He likes anything with WW2 in it, though. That was another unnecessary wandering bit - the trio of soldiers walking through the forest.

Gosh, worrying this as I really enjoyed the cinematic experience and I didn't expect to as I am not a fan of McEwan at all. However, for me the film did what pure entertainment cinema is meant to do, swept me up in the emotion of the story and deposited me, sated, at the other end. I have little knowledge of the technicalities but as a member of Joe Public audience I would say give it a go. It's one of those that's going to divide the audience in half and the only way to see which half you fall into is to go along. Five of us went - four of us really enjoyed it, one of us was indifferent. Anyone else out there actually like it?

Kath

I hope anyone who reads my reviews takes the same approach I do. Makes up their own mind. My film-making son as a matter of principle makes sure he sees anything I pan. But there's a bit of father son in there too.

So I would always agree that people should give a film a go. Any review is a personal view, though perhaps if it's any good it can open out the elements of a film a bit. I write reviews and post them on WW because as a writers' web site writing is what it's about. Reviews are good bite-sized bits of writing and the constraints of length, which I stretch a bit to give me writing space, hopefully improves ones writing skills. Reviews are useful because they offer the opportunity and necessity to be varied in tone, serious, humorous, scathing etc etc.

As for the effects of a review - I sincerely hope that one consequence of my reviews is that some of the movies outside the main multiplex almost monopolistic distribution system, get an airing and perhaps people are motivated to seek them out their interest having been aroused. Or even catch up with them on DVD. It's not why I write them but it would be a nice effect if it happens. And I just love movies - even in odd sort of way, bad ones. If for me Atonement is a failure of artistic aspiration, at least it has aspiration - unlike much Hollywood output.

Sorry, these aren't the issues you raised, but your note gave me this chance to explore just a little why I write quite a lot of reviews.

Thanks for the comment. And for reading the review at all. I always regard that as a compliment and never take it for granted.

regards

Zettel

Kath, I think that film is so much a matter of personal taste I agree if you enjoyed it you probably know which of your friends will enjoy it too. I'm far too cool in my approach to be a 'swept up in the emotion' but I know people who will like it.

I think, too, the hype for a film like 'Atonement' encourages a critical approach - in some of us, anyway. There is no danger, either, that people will not have heard about the film.

I thought this might end Keira Knightley's career,especially as she seems to have admitted herself she's not all that interested. However, she already has another film about to be released. It seems to have a Japanese setting - or at least a Japnese female co-star. The poster had a washed-out look a la 'Painted Veil' which made me think Oriental. My partner says her popularity has nothing to do with acting, so I must conclude he has a point.

I agree intention is important, too, and there's nothing so grating as a miss-match between artistic pretension and a keen eye to the box-ofice.

I also think it's helpful to look for what's good in a film, which can give insight into intention. I'm about to review a film starring Gerard Depardieu's son He has about as much charisma as a pine box and I can't help thinking the main purpose of the film is to give him a chance. He just scowls and stomps throughout as a Bonaparte General in love with a Duchess.The direction is, to put it kindly, languid. I am looking forward, though, to examining the redeeming aspects of the film, which include costumes, decor and scenery. Like you, Zettel, I find much to enjoy in any film.

Sheila

I got taken to see this last night - to my shame I haven't read the book - but for me it was liking watching someone pulling the wings off flies.

It was beautiful but empty. I felt manipulated - like Tess of the D'Urbervilles really - obvious it was all going to end in tears.

Hated the Vanessa Redgrave scene and just felt everything was laid on with a trowel - that bloody typewriter - and what about the chocolate scene?

Yes - it packed an emotional punch - or I wouldn't be this vehement - but I don't know what it was meant to say?

All artistic effect - no emotional truth?

And now I have to go and read the book...

Sarah

Zettel,

Just a note to say I think you write superb reviews - full of interesting detail and thoughtful comment. But mainly I like them because I trust two things: your taste and your refusal to be swayed from it by bullshit, especially the kind produced by the critical mass view. As a punter, it's hard these days to find reliable reviewers. Barry Norman was great for me, because I could simply reverse anything he said if I wanted to know whether or not I'd like a film. Jonathon Ross's tastes coincide with most of my mine but he has the odd lapse, either because he succumbs to the critical mass view or because his wife has written the damn screenplay.

You have saved me watching a lot of naff films by bravely paying hard cash to confirm my darkest instincts, e.g. Sweeney Todd (combining a couple of Emperors still in new clothing for me - Burton and Sondheim). I know art is supposed to be about personal taste but I honestly think that critics and arty-farty types don't actually know what their taste is most of the time, so desperate are they to not be found wanting. Best/worst example for me is the Coen Brothers - everything on the surface looking just right for critical mass approval: 'dark humour' (whatever that is), 'hip' dialogue and 'cooky' plots - just a pity there's nothing of depth to really catch one's emotions.

As for Atonement, anyone with an inner bullshit detector would never get past the trailers. There is a deathly tradition of toff's-in-love cinema in this country, which rakes in the cash mainly because there are enough British would-be-toffs and US fantasy film tourists willing to pay. But when the genre gets in bed with such a cold, flatliner, novelist as McEwan, any rumpy-pumpy which results is never going to anything more than anti-climactic.

Keep up the good work!

Terry

P.S. Why aren't you doing this great work in a media column?

Why aren't you doing this great work in a media column?

Good question

Sarah

Terry

Thanks so much. Given quality of your own note - I feel especially complimented. I'd love to have written your last para! Made me laugh out loud.

I would love to get an etablished media platform for my kind of reviews - but its a pretty closed shop and inevitably when you are official the pressures from the industry start and that can be subversive. Mind you I may just be pig-headed enough to resist such blandishments and my material needs aren't that great at this stage. I'm exploring the possibility of something web-based but its early days. Will let you know if anything happens.

Sarah

Thanks also.

Thanks to both of you - it is always encouraging to get feedback. I still feel a little anxious with each review. I am always conscious that there is a kind of conceit involved in all criticism. But I love movies and think they are underestimated as an art form - popular or more esoteric. So I'm driven to write them and the best protection against self-delusion is to try to write them as well as possible and as truthfully as I can. I guess Writewords is a natural home for them in that sense.

Although by instinct I like the deeper movies - i LOVE to write light-hearted reviews
of fun movies like The Holiday or Two Days in Paris.regards

Z

That's a good point, about pressures from industry. It's not entirely dissimilar to getting a contract as a novelist: before, you could write what you like, after, well . . . it depends. I agree that movies are underestimated as an art form. A few years ago, I was contracted to write a book about the film and TV industries. I knew a fair bit about how they worked, but was still impressed when I discovered just how much work goes into making a film, even a bad one. I guess that's something a critic has to come to terms with - the fact he can rubbish a product in an instant, when it might have taken several years and hundreds of people to produce.

Is The Holiday that recent one with Cameron Diaz? My partner's wanted to watch it but me, who says he isn't influenced by critics but is really, has been resisting on the grounds they all said it's crap. But if you're recommending it, Mr Zettel, I'll give it a go.

Terry

Terry

Check the review - it will at least tell you what to expect. I enjoyed the film but probably enjoyed writing the review a bit more!

regards

Z