Atonement: A Review

Arguably, the scene in Atonement that does the most to take us out of the story’s emotional journey may invite us directly to its thematic center. Towards the middle of the film, we join Robbie Turner, played by the remarkable James McAvoy, as a soldier making his way through the beach of Dunkirk, in the midst of the British Army’s miraculous retreat across the sea. Over the course of a 5 minute tracking shot, we walk with him through the madness, seeing the sense of panic, injury, organization and madness in this strange scene. Yet, for all of its madness, we stay on Turner, as he somehow tries to climb through the madness, much of it beyond him and most of it out of his control, as he seeks to find the most basic of needs, in this case food, sleep and first aid. Without a word, we see in the madness that somehow even these basic needs may elude him.

Atonement should be a pretty straightforward period love story. In 1935, Robbie Turner is the son of the housekeeper for a aristocratic British family. Due to their long tenure, the family sent him to Cambridge, and so even as he works around the elaborate gardens of the family estate, we quickly realize he is an intelligent man with ambitions to rise above his station. He is friends with Kiera Knightley’s Cecilia Tallis, the oldest daughter of the hosting family. As she lounges with friends and plays arrogant with Robbie, one sees the romantic tension underneath. This is a relationship-in-waiting, searching for the right moment for their youthful passions to come together.

But then there’s Briony, Cee’s 13-year old daughter. She clearly has a crush on Robbie, and we quickly realize that this is the kind of thing that should make us nervous. An aspiring writer, we see her in early scenes trying to convince her playmates to act out her play, and in her failure we see her desire to control, her deep imagination, and her unintuitive interaction with other people.

It is a formula for disaster, as a series of events unfolds that puts her misunderstandings at center stage. Catching Cee and Robbie by themselves, she misinterprets their actions and comes to falsely accuse Robbie of other crimes. It is this fateful moment that changes the lives of all three of them.

The first act of 1935 sets the stage for the flash forward to the early days of World War 2. Given the opportunity to get out of prison, Robbie is fighting in France. Cee and Briony have both become a nurse, though Cee has no interaction with her family since the false accusation. Each are searching to rebuild a life destroyed by that one night. Robbie longs for a relationship with Cee, Cee longs for Robbie to return safely, and Briony somehow wants to find a way to make peace with both of them. At every turn, the world seems to orchestrate to keep them from achieving any of their ends.

The title is of course intentional, and it invites us to consider the nature of “atonement.” What can we do to make up for the mistakes of our past? The bleak perspective of the film is that sometimes there is nothing. Sometimes the mistakes we make, even the innocent ones or those that are most understandable, yield consequences far beyond our imaginations. From the film’s perspective, Briony’s act set in motion events that would unwind their lives, and nothing she can do can put that back together.

It’s not a message we want to hear, but it may be a message that we need to hear. Searching for justice, reconciliation, or harmony is at times an impossible or unreachable goal when left to human efforts. The inability to find this peace can be the very thing that drives us to the Divine. We cannot achieve “atonement” by our own power, and must contend with the consequences of our actions. Our hope is not that we will make it all right, but that He will work redemptively to make things right, both here and now and, ultimately, in the age to come.

At a number of points in Atonement, we find characters looking back on their life, wishing moments could be redone or that their choices could be undone. But of course they can’t. And so we come back to that tracking shot. In the midst of this bleak picture of war, the shot comes upon a group singing a hymn, and leaves them behind singing the simple refrain, “the still small voice of God,” words that are echoed again at the end of the shot. In the midst of madness, as we deal with choices we make, the choices others make, and the seemingly random events of our lives that at times drive us towards messy ends, we have the single hope, the promise even, that God is at work, if quietly, and is directing all things to His own good purposes. It is that faith that can sustain us when everything else around us seems bleak. It is that faith that points to the real atonement that we can hope for.