Having reinvigorated Jane Austen’s milieu with his filthy gorgeous version of Pride And Prejudice, director Joe Wright manages an even more impressive feat in taking on Ian McEwan’s highly literary novel and beating it into a perfectly cinematic shape. It helps, of course, that at the heart of McEwan’s writerly games, there lies a cracking story.
Briony Tallis (played by terrific Irish newcomer Saoirse Ronan) is a precocious 13-year-old living in a British Big House during the thirties. Discarding her vast array of plush toys and childhood comforts, she composes plays and spies on the adults to while away the summer, particularly her 23-year-old older sister Cecilia (Knightley) who has recently returned from college.
Inevitably, given the historical setting, class is never far from the agenda. As Briony notes, there is clearly something between Cecilia and Robbie (McAvoy), the son of a servant, but the younger girl’s emotionally immature mind misinterprets what that might be, a mistake that has tragic consequences for them all.
For almost two hours, it’s hard to conceive how Mr. Wright could have done better with the material at hand. Scenes depicting World War II, pitched somewhere between Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 and the visceral overture of Saving Private Ryan, are breathtaking to behold. McEwan’s high-minded nods toward Henry James and Shakespeare are beautifully complimented by a new set of allusions. Here, everyone speaks in the clipped queenly vowels of Alexander Korda productions; a ‘dah-ling’ accent that probably never really existed, but my goodness, is it evocative.
The cast are equally impressive. Ms. Knightley is suitably brittle. Mr. McAvoy might break your heart. Ms. Ronan keeps you onside while doing terrible things. Even minor roles occupied by the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch seem steeped in the source material from whence they came.
Indeed, one might describe the film as being slavishly, though triumphantly faithful until the final moments when no amount of POV chicanery, of skips backwards and forwards, can successfully translate what’s on the page. It’s a poor denouement for a magnificent achievement, but happily, it does not detract too much from our viewing pleasure.