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Atonement
(R)

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All's fair in love and war between Robbie (James McAvoy) and Cecilia (Keira Knightley).
Atonement, based on the best-selling novel by the great Ian McEwan set in mid-1930s England, is about the crushing aftermath of a nasty lie told by an overly imaginative 13-year-old about her beautiful, flirtatious older sister (Keira Knightley) and the bright, ambitious son of their housekeeper (James McAvoy). From McEwan's novel and a screenplay by Christoper Hampton set in and around a British mansion straight out of Brideshead Revisited, director Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice) has created what might sound like a Merchant Ivory-meets-The English Patient sort of thing, but is actually gripping, brilliantly made and grown-up, although definitely not everyone's cup of tea. It would be criminal to spill any more about the plot twists and turns of this sweeping epic that at times recalls the work of David Lean and 1970s films like The Go-Between except to say that it all turns on the little girl (played superbly by Saoirse Ronan) watching Knightley impulsively strip and dive into a fountain. But let it be said that you'd have to search high and low to find a more powerful or technically astonishing sequence in any other film this year than this one's five-minute stunner in which McAvoy's character is at ground zero during the world-gone-mad Battle of Dunkirk in 1940.

Keira Knightley as spoiled, hard-edged flapper Cecilia
There isn't an "off" performance in the entire movie, but Knightley, as the spoiled, hard-edged flapper who looks unforgettable in a white bathing suit, shows that she may actually be developing the goods for a really interesting career. McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland) is so compelling that he makes mincemeat of most American actors his age, and Vanessa Redgrave, who arrives late in the story, provides a brief master's seminar on the art of acting and knocks an already impressive movie right out of the park. Take a pass if your idea of entertainment is strictly giant robots and cool things blowing up, but director Wright, with only his second film, shows that it's still possible to make a big, lush, exhilarating movie that puts human behavior, not CGI, in close-up.

by Stephen Rebello

photo credit: Top: Alex Bailey; Bottom: Greg Williams

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