'Atonement' is not a movie heaped with the sort of drama that is a trademark of war movies usually. What it is, is a simple story of a boy and two girls, and how their lives are plunged into spectacular tragedy as a result of some very typical adolescent feelings of jealousy. It is understated but really quite brilliant in many aspects. Right from the beginning, the background score inspired by the clickings of a typewriter grab your attention and you are transported to a rich English house and the gorgeous outdoors that surround it. The mood is rebellious, the heat persistent, and the hormones raging. Everything seems as if it's under control, but only on the surface. Beneath, there are waves as if at high tide - passionate, tumultous, unrelenting. In the midst of it all, one of the girls becomes responsible for a life changing act that rips apart three destinies.
As the movie fast forwards five years, all the three protagonists are still around (though only just) but the mood has changed. The passion is alive, but it is fuelled not just by hormones but by feelings of guilt, love and helplessness. Each tries to come to terms with the past, all the while wishing for an opportunity to overcome it and to be free, at last.
The final chapter of the story depicts an aged woman who is dying, but perhaps never really lived after that one summer afternoon changed the course of her life and the others'. They are now dead and she is responsible. There is only remorse and the attempt to create a memory that allows all the three of them to be happy at last, if not in reality, then at least in a land of fantasy.
This is not a film to be missed, especially if you haven't read the book. The clear cut camera angles, the succint dialogue and the age old English pride that line it allow the story to take over. It only gets as deep as you want it to, if you want it to, but in the end, it's not just another doomed love story. It is a tragedy of epic proportions that only gets magnified because the grounds for its existence are so trivial. This is a brilliant effort that is accompanied by performances par excellence. James McAvoy is my Hollywood star of the year and quite franky seems he is capable of many a great film, after this one and 'The Last King of Scotland'. I may just check out 'Wanted' in which he appears with a bevy of stars and will probably be at par if not outshine them all. Looks like he's been around for a while, but I think it is now that he has finally arrived.
Speaking of which, closer to home, there has been much hue and cry about yet another bunch of romance movies quite simply made as a launch pad for the boys who star in them. This has been made quite obvious by the 'Love Story 2050' fiasco, because the movie bombed but the boy is in the house. He is, as someone very wise told me, a Hrithik at one tenth the price of the original. And he even has his sideburns! Am I the only one this disturbs?
The other movie, with the other boy, who I am just about ready to kidnap becuase he is so cute was one of the best cliche movies ever. It is a strange recipe that embraces the cliche and makes a spoofy kind of silly movie where the cliche is so over the top, it has to make you laugh. Now that's taking something boring and basic and going all out of the box for it. 'Jaane Tu' is cute but not soppy, funny but not LOL hilarious, and sweet but not saccharine-coated. The 'Ranjhore ke Rathod' bit is awesome... Now there's a bunch of boys who know how to come of age in style!
All in all, the film seems like an earnest effort to understand that thing called love, and the heartbreaks that one must endure and sometimes cause to meet that one elusive person who defines it all and defies it all depending on the time of day.
This one's a worthwhile watch too... Won't take too much out of you and will make you walk away heaving a little sigh with the knoweldge that pleasant dreams shall follow.
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