It is difficult to say much more without giving away important plot points. But suffice it to say that the film, written by Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons) and directed by Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice), is full of images and bits of dialogue that echo one another in interesting ways; immersion in water is a recurring motif, and an upper-class man's glib reference to the "war wound" he got while fighting off a child—just a nick on his cheek, really—stands in stark contrast to the actual war wound that the lower-class Robbie has when we catch up with him in France.
The film also raises important questions about the relationship between honesty and kindness, between truth and grace, between memory and wishful thinking, and it ends on a surprisingly powerful note that asks whether there can ever be true mercy without, well, truth. Can one find redemption in a lie, if it is told with kindness?
In thinking about this film, my mind often goes back to Snow Falling on Cedars. Both films move back and forth in time, both films feature young lovers interrupted in a moment of passion, and both films amplify questions of personal, social and even cosmic injustice by dragging their characters into the Second World War.
But where Snow Falling on Cedarswas about bearing your scars and letting go of the past, Atonement seems to be about people who cannot let go of the past, and are indeed haunted by the past and their knowledge that it can never be undone. Briony, in particular, is searching for grace and forgiveness, and the fact that she can't quite find it makes Atonementone of the more devastating films in recent memory.
