Watch or Skip

Director: Joe Wright

Cast: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Romola Garai, Saoirse Ronan

Rating:

It hit me the first time I saw the trailer, something was captivating about this movie even though not only people refused to go with me to watch it but also the dreadful reviews I received: slow, boring, not worth watching… Yeah! I heard all that. I decided then to watch it at home.

Actually I am not a big fan of Keira Knightley; never liked her acting style… she is just too snobbish for me. Yet, she herself admits that this role is quite different from all previous ones where she was always presented as a girl living on the edge of maturity.

The 35 years old director (Joe Wright) proves to you in this movie that it’s not always experience that makes a movie unique. It is instinct, vision, and gut feeling all summed up together. Experience only gets you to enhance results but doesn’t add magic.

Joe Wright had the chance of his life to prove to all who doubted his potentials what’s really lying in this creative head of his. He was able to translate moods, feelings, and communication in this movie silently and passively without you noticing. He played around each and every tiny detail including music, acting skills, and effects … it was quite clear that he put his heart in Atonement.

To start with, the typewriter is a crucial element in the movie since Bryony (Romola Garai), Cecilia’s (Keira Knightley) youngest sister, likes to writes novels; of course using her typewriter, and since a typewritten message drastically changes the flaw of events. From the very beginning, you will hear sounds and melodies performed using a typewriter in an amazing way… even movements are accompanied by the same sound like a footstep, a punch, or a door slam.

Another interesting component, which is not applicable to the movie only but to real life as well, is the way the director reflected scenes from different angles. Throughout the movie, he would intentionally show us a scene from an eye of a beholder and then replicate the scene in its right setting… what actually happened! It opens your eyes to a great insight of how seeing an action in a specific timing and with a certain state of mind can direct your interpretation to an absolutely opposite direction and how it can sometimes lead to unappreciable consequences… even disastrous! Here you will see one girl’s perception of what’s right and what’s sinful and how her own misleading judgment will unintentionally cause a tragedy she is not aware of, leading to a twist of destiny to her own sister.

I loved the movie, its great direction, and the marvelous acting capabilities such as Bryony and Robbie (James McAvoy). This movie is of love & war, desperation & hope, envy & regret… it is a movie about a one night love strike. Make sure you watch it… till the end!

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