Come Back. Come Back To Me.

Oh, what a nice surprise it is to see Brenda Belthyn turn up in a film unexpectedly. I had no idea she was in Atonement, and when I saw her in the kitchen so early in the film I nearly wet myself. Sadly, her role was tiny. Sadly.


Atonement, director Joe Wright's second collaboration with Keira Knightley after Pride And Prejudice, is based on the best-selling and acclaimed novel of the same name by Ian McEwan. Set in the lead up to and then during the second world war, it is ultimately the story of Cecilia (Knightley), a young and beautiful daughter of a wealthy family, and her interrupted love affair with Robbie (James McAvoy), the son of a servant who died and has been almost adopted by Cecilia's family. All of this is told through the eyes of Cecilia's younger sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan in her younger incarnation, Romola Garai later in the film), the person responsible for the destruction of their relationship.

I must say, this dress is pretty stunning.

Briony has written a play, planning on premiering it the night she finishes using her cousins as the cast to celebrate the visit of her brother Leon (Patrick Kennedy), who is bringing with him his eligible friend Paul (Benedict Cumberbatch.) Cecilia and Robbie, meanwhile, have had a fight over a vase and are not speaking. Robbie writes a number of drafts of a letter of apology, and unfortunately puts the wrong one, a horribly crude version, in the envelope he gives to Briony to run ahead with. Upon reading it, Cecilia professes her love for Robbie, but they are interrupted in flagrante by Briony. Shortly after it is discovered their twin cousins have gone missing, apparently attempting to run away back to their parents.


All go out to search for the two in the dark, where Briony witnesses an apparent sexual attack on her remaining cousin, Lola (and is this name a reference to Nabokov's Lolita?), and as she had read Robbie's sexually explicit letter prior to delivering it to Cecilia, she convinces herself it was Robbie, whom she is in love with and angry at for spurning her. So starts the true drama in the film, with Robbie being sent off to prison and accepting an early release in return for fighting against the Nazis on the continent. Cecilia has disowned her family as soon as she could and is now working as a nurse, writing back and forth with Robbie whenever she can. Briony, perhaps as penance, also signs up to nursing school when she turns eighteen, and whilst in London seeks out Cecilia to apologise, realising what an egregious error she has made and how terribly she has treated her sister and Robbie.


I'm not a Knightley hater, but nor am I a lover, and I think she is fine here, not great, not bad, just... well, I think like Clooney, I struggle to see past Keira Knightley. Ronan is fantastic, and I have the time of day any time for McAvoy - I think he is incredibly underrated and such an extraordinary actor. Redgrave, playing the old Briony right at the end of the film, is powerful in her short time on screen, and Blethyn, despite hardly appearing, is fabulous as always. The movie is so well written, is founded in such an amazing screenplay, that it would be hard, I think, not to perform well within its bounds. 


The cinematography by Seamus McGarvey is nothing short of magical. The film looks incredible (helped by terrific production and especially costume design), and some of the feats achieved (such as that oft-cited long tracking shot through Dunkirk) are breathtaking. Almost all of the elements combine well to add to the power and beauty of the film without ever becoming a dominant force. But I do say 'almost' very deliberately. The score. The score often killed me. The inclusion of the initially diegetic typewriter as a recurring theme made me want to claw out my eyes. It was so distracting, I kept finding myself thinking about how irritating it was when I should have been immersed in the film. It totally drew me out of whatever frame of mind I was in. And it kept coming back! There were a few other diegetic elements incorporated, and after the typewriter clack I very much noticed every single one. It was eternally frustrating, and will forever taint my memory of a film that otherwise might have gone down as a memorable favourite from the last decade. But I just can't get that typewriter out of my head, every time I think of any scene or moment in the film. Clack. Clack. SHUT UP! Shame on you, Dario Marianelli. It might have been ok if used once, but all the way through was deadly. And to think it won him an Oscar. ARGH! Of course, if they hadn't been such pricks about Johnny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood score, this never would have happened. But I digress.


Despite the music, the rest of it was magnificent, magnificent enough to get 4 stars.

Innit Sweethearts?

Mike Leigh is a love or hate director. Truly. I think he is that polarising. I remember when Happy-Go-Lucky opened the Sydney Film Festival last year, I knew people who tried to watch it, knowing they hated his films, and got through fifteen minutes before leaving. Then, I know people who love his films, who will gladly watch anything he puts out. I fall into the latter camp, but I can totally see why people would hate him. His films are very demanding on the viewer.

I won’t go too much into how Leigh makes his films, as it’s pretty well documented. He favours a heavily rehearsed and improvised approach, where secrets and plot points are revealed to the actors as they go along. I guess this is why his performers are often so incredible - they really have to inhabit the characters in order that they can maintain the continuity over months of development and shooting, without knowing what is really happening around them. Much like life, really. But yes, he’s sent Brenda Blethyn to an Oscar nom for Secrets and Lies, Imelda Staunton to one for Vera Drake and Sally Hawkins to one for Happy-Go-Lucky. Oh, wait, that last one isn’t true. AND WHAT A SCANDAL THAT IS.

But moving on.

Leigh’s major breakout film across the pond was Secrets and Lies, his '96 film launching Brenda Blethyn onto the world with her turn as Cynthia, along the way receiving five Oscar noms and that pretty leaf from Cannes, the Palme d’Or, among many others including the Best British Film BAFTA. An aging single mother to Roxanne, Cynthia has a strained relationship with her sister-in-law Monica (Phyllis Logan), meaning she doesn’t get to see her brother Maurice (Timothy Spall), a successful photographer, anywhere near as often as she’s like. Roxanne has recently started to see a new man, leaving Cynthia virtually alone.

All of this changes with a phone call from Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste in another Oscar nominated turn), bringing an unsettling revelation and reminder of the past. Hortense fills the lonely void in Cynthia’s life, bringing her much happiness, but it’s a dangerous lying game they’re playing, one certain to come dramatically to an end at Roxanne’s 21st birthday party, held at Maurice’s house.

I’ve heard criticism of Blethyn as too hysterical. I can see where that’s coming from, but, really, no one does hysterical like she does it, and here, she does it perfectly. She carries such loneliness and emotional baggage on her shoulders for the entire film (and it’s not a short one) flawlessly. You truly feel for her every time she sheds a tear. Here she is, she has tried to do everything to help her daughter and create a family, and it’s all coming to nought. The one shot at happiness that she has, that brought by Hortense, is not only fringed with danger, it is positively plated in it. This happiness can only last so long - but while it does last, you feel so, so good for Cynthia. The difference is remarkable.

The supporting cast are similarly excellent. Spall plays the younger brother very well. He tries to be supportive, though as the younger and more successful sibling this is always difficult, but is nevertheless somewhat curtailed by his wife’s lack of enthusiasm for a relationship with his family - from her posh heights, they must seem like an appalling bunch of deadbeats. But she also has her secrets, and its exposure, amongst the rest of the revelations in the climactic scene, is equally explosive. Jean-Baptiste is wonderfully stoic in the face of this family meltdown of which she isn’t really a part, but is there for and forced to experience - and a lot of it is seen to be her fault, an unfair laying of blame, but in the circumstances, who else are they going to blame?

I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this film. That’s three hits from three for me and Mike Leigh. It’s an excellent socio-realist study of family, backed up by astonishingly real performances and a terrific, oft-improvised script. 4.5 stars, and I can’t wait for the next offering from this master of British cinema.