Atonement

An obvious contender for next year’s Oscars, Atonement, based on the acclaimed book by Ian McEwan, follows several characters (including Keira Knightley’s Cecilia and James McAvoy’s Robbie) as their respective fates are determined over the course of one pivotal night. There’s little doubt that Atonement is destined to receive comparisons to The English Patient, as both films feature a slow, deliberate pace and an epic romance that transpires over the course of several years. Yet Atonement establishes itself as a far more involving and flat-out moving effort than its cinematic cousin almost immediately, with Joe Wright’s consistently intriguing visuals and the uniformly effective performances proving instrumental in the film’s success. Screenwriter Christopher Hampton remains remarkably faithful to McEwan’s novel, effectively retaining the multiple point-of-view elements and the seemingly unfilmable epilogue, and it’s certainly worth noting that the movie packs a far more potent emotional punch than its literary predecessor. And while the film’s highlight is clearly a continuous, absolutely jaw-dropping five-minute tracking shot, Atonement is, from start to finish, one of the most effective big-budget epics to come around since 1997’s Titanic (it’s not quite as stirring as that, however).

***1/2 out of ****