Screening Liberally Big Picture
by Gina Telaroli, Take Part
The final in our five-part series looking at the Best Picture nominees, Telaroli takes a look at the hidden class politics of Atonement.
With lush photography and a beautiful cast, Joe Wright's Oscar nominated Atonement is being advertised as an epic romance, and while romance does weave itself in and out of the plot, it doesn't really get to the heart of the film.
From the opening shot, a long line of animal figurines representing all of the jungle and the natural order of things, it's clear that instead of love, this is a movie about class. For in England, the natural order of things, no matter how unnatural it may seem, is their rigid class system.
After the animal kingdom parade ends we meet Briony, a young girl with a gift for writing but without anyone to give her or her writing much attention. A quick conversation with Robbie (James McAvoy), the handsome gardener, subtly reveals that Briony has a crush on him. When Briony later asks her sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) why she no longer talks to Robbie, it's obvious that she isn't doing so out of concern for her sister's relationship with Robbie, but out of her own selfishness.
Cecilia, without any hesitation, tells Briony that they "move in different circles, that's all," and in fact they do. Robbie's mother works for Cecilia and Briony's family as a housekeeper and cooke, leaving Robbie to grow up with the family. And even though the girls' father paid for his education he was always on the outside looking in. Despite his education, the story begins with Robbie working as the gardener, trying to get money for medical school, his attempt to climb a bit higher on the societal ladder. His feelings are for the older sister and as he daydreams of Cecilia in the bathtub, a military plane flies overhead, a reminder of his status in life and a view of things to come.
From here we follow Cecilia, Robbie and Briony into a fateful night that changes all of their lives. Before dinner, the two from different circles finally declare their love for each other. Unfortunately for them, a confused Briony interrupts their physical and emotional declaration. Later in the evening, when everyone is walking through the woods, Briony , out of both jealousy and not wanting to cross class lines, tells the police that she saw Robbie raping her cousin Lola.
The real culprit, the much richer chocolate magnate Paul Marshall, is of course never suspected, as it makes more sense to both Lola and Briony that the man who runs in a "different circle" would be the appropriate choice considering the crime. Even Cecilia's pleas to the police and her mother that Robbie is innocent and Briony isn't to be trusted aren't enough to outweigh their prejudice against the lower man.
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