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2007-12-11 - 8:49 a.m.

When I saw the trailer for Joe Wright's adaptation of Atonement, I knew that the thing was either going to be wonderful or a disaster, no middle ground.

Ian McEwan's Atonement is very dear to me (and everyone else, I imagine, who read it)--the kind of novel you get completely immersed in, missing subway stops as you read a few more pages, and missing it terribly when it's over. It is one of the great books of our lifetime.

In order to give the movie half a chance, I adjusted my expectations and went in with a permeable heart, and was rewarded with an excellent, wrenching, perfectly cast drama.

The director manages to take a complicated and very internal narrative and translate it into stunning visual images. He uses lots of lingering close-ups that track the ever-mutating emotions of the characters, creating real intimacy and directness, and then sets the action in lush, dreamlike sets that make the whole thing seem like a fable.

The scenes of the Dunkirk evacuation, especially, are incredible, and the ending is almost as powerful onscreen as it is on the page.


Speaking of trailers, last night's included two notable ones: one for Martin McDonagh's In Bruges which looks fantastic (I'm still dreamin' that Tim Burton gets his hands on The Pillowman) and one for The Other Boleyn Girl, which, based on the preview, looks completely wretched.

thoughts? (15 comments so far)

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