Atonement (2007) and Ambivalence

      It's grand, it's beautiful, and it has a compelling, wrenching storyline provided by a critically-acclaimed novelist. So why didn't I enjoy "Atonement" more?
      I've been thinking about it for a few days now, and I'm still not sure. I think it's because "Atonement" tries so desperately hard to be an OSCAR MOVIE.
      The story has great dramatic legs--in pre-World War II Britain, Briony (Saoirse Ronan) is a precocious and overly romantic upper-class 13 year-old who misunderstands a sexually-charged scene she witnesses between her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and the housekeeper's son Robbie (James McAvoy). Enamored of drama (she dreams of being a writer) and harboring her own crush on Robbie, Briony witnesses two more confusing and disturbing encounters, leading her to make a false accusation that will change all three of their lives forever. As a result, Robbie is jailed until war breaks out, when he is paroled in exchange for enlisting in the Army as a private.
      Briony, now 18 (played by Romola Garai) and racked with guilt over what she did to Robbie and Cecilia, joins the war effort as a nurse. Cecilia, also a nurse, still longs for the lost Robbie, while Robbie himself, separated from his unit, faces a long, dangerous hike through the French countryside to the ocean, where he joins the massive chaos of the Dunkirk evacuation.
      Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Well it is, at least in those moments--most of which come early on--when the audience is allowed to form its own impressions. But director Joe Wright spends so much time trying to create those impressions for us that we are rarely allowed to forget that we are watching a movie; we are never able fully to engage. I'm thinking especially of moments like the melodramatic tableaux of Cecilia's family when Robbie approaches the house to face the police, the overly self-conscious link between the pounding of Briony's typewriter keys and the music of the soundtrack, the oh-so-artfully composed revelation of massacred schoolchildren, and the long, unbroken tracking shot on the beach at Dunkirk. The shot itself is a bravura bit of film-making, but about halfway through it I found myself fidgeting in my seat, wondering why on earth it was necessary.
      I count all of these as offenses from the "Look, Ma--No Hands!" school of filmmaking. Watching movies (at least movies that aspire to being more than disposable entertainment) is a contract between the film's creators and its viewers. The filmmakers agree to set the stage, to create a framework of reference for story and character and to lead the viewer into that framework. But at some point, the filmmakers must let go of the viewer's hand and let her walk in, look around, sit on the stage furniture, and ultimately find her own point of view from which she'll watch what they have to show her. If the director spends the entire movie waving his arms and pointing, the contract (and the spell) is broken.
      "Atonement," though beautiful to watch and filled with strong performances, refuses to sign on the bottom line.