Atonement (and some on Elizabeth the Golden Age)

[dangermousie]

Oh GOD.

Here is the Atonement trailer. The freaking thing made me cry. I wonder how I'll deal with watching it in the theater.

Atonement, for those who don't know is a British movie that opened the Venice Festival and has recently opened in the UK but not yet in the USA (it opens here in December). It's based on a really really acclaimed, heart-breaking novel by Ian McEwan. Here is a good summary of the story, from amazon's description of the novel:

This haunting novel, which just failed to win the Booker this year, is at once McEwan at his most closely observed and psychologically penetrating, and his most sweeping and expansive. It is in effect two, or even three, books in one, all masterfully crafted. The first part ushers us into a domestic crisis that becomes a crime story centered around an event that changes the lives of half a dozen people in an upper-middle-class country home on a hot English summer's day in 1935. Young Briony Tallis, a hyperimaginative 13-year-old who sees her older sister, Cecilia, mysteriously involved with their neighbor Robbie Turner, a fellow Cambridge student subsidized by the Tallis family, points a finger at Robbie when her young cousin is assaulted in the grounds that night; on her testimony alone, Robbie is jailed. The second part of the book moves forward five years to focus on Robbie, now freed and part of the British Army that was cornered and eventually evacuated by a fleet of small boats at Dunkirk during the early days of WWII. This is an astonishingly imagined fresco that bares the full anguish of what Britain in later years came to see as a kind of victory. In the third part, Briony becomes a nurse amid wonderfully observed scenes of London as the nation mobilizes. No, she doesn't have Robbie as a patient, but she begins to come to terms with what she has done and offers to make amends to him and Cecilia, now together as lovers. In an ironic epilogue that is yet another coup de the tre, McEwan offers Briony as an elderly novelist today, revisiting her past in fact and fancy and contributing a moving windup to the sustained flight of a deeply novelistic imagination.

Oh boy. I can't wait until this opens here. Also, if James McAvoy has decided to embark on a campaign to make me swoonily in love with him, he is succeeding. He was the one part I truly loved about Narnia (generally not a movie for me), and then swoon-worthy in Becoming Jane, and now this. *puts King of Scotland on top of her netflix queue*



































A slightly longer trailer:

ETA. MMMMMM. Elizabeth: The Golden Age trailer. I might take back my apprehension. I don't mind ahistorical if it entertains me (the first movir failed but this just might do it). EEEEE!

Comments

[wistfulmemory.livejournal.com]

I'm totally digging James McAvoy, too. I love his accent, and his looks aren't bad either. ;) I'll have to look into this movie when I get back to the US.

[kitsune714.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I think I'm adding Atonement to my "to read" list. I like Keira Knightley, but I LOVE that photo of her in that green dress!

[octavia-b.livejournal.com]

If you like James McAvoy you should definitely get hold of the British mini-series State of Play. He's adorable in it. It also has the added bonus of starring John Simm and being a kick-ass story into the bargain.

[koalathebear.livejournal.com]

Gah Atonement looks delicious. I definitely want to see it because I love James McAvoy

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I actually hadn't heard of Atonement until alexandral posted on it earlier, but then it was automatically added to my watch list.

My understanding(which is dated to prefilming, so I could be very, very wrong) is that Elizabeth: TGA isn't a sequel to Elizabeth(which I haven't seen but probably should) but rather a movie that happens to have Cate Blanchett playing Elizabeth Tudor again-rather like how the guy who played Little John in the Errol Flynn Robin Hood played Little John in 3 or 4 Robin Hood movies.

You know...I really don't know whether or not I like Cate Blanchett herself, but she seems to be the best suited actress out there for period roles...and really not suited to modern roles. I think my favorite movie of hers is An Ideal Husband. And then I've liked Clive Owen since I saw Gosford Park.

[bennet-7.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit ho hum on Atonement. While I love McAvoy with an unholy love, I can't stand the no-talent stick figure that is Keira Knightley.

I'm rather looking forward to Elizabeth: The Golden Age because Clive Owen is yummy. However, the impression I get from the trailer is that Elizabeth sets Raleigh up with his wife Bess, when actually they were married in secret and Elizabeth got seriously mad about it, sending Raleigh to the tower of London. Their marriage has always been one of my favourite historical pairings because they seemed to genuinely care for each other - apparently, she carried his embalmed head around with her after he died. If that's not love I don't know what is.

quango

[fire-snake.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth: the Golden Age trailer is absolutely stunning... I actually saw it on the big screen in a movie theater a few weeks ago (told ya). Speaking of the costumes, Bednaya Nastya doesn't come even close. Atonement looks very nice, we'll have to see. I like the last twist from the literary standpoint, but I am sure it sucks for the characters.
BTW, I am not sure if you knew (well, it is always hard to tell:), but I think I finally figured out why Fforde had Quango in the Fourth Bear. It is from my all time favorite political show YM (Yes, Minister).
Quango- Acronym for Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization. Quangos' official purpose is to allow for the public to influence government planning and legislation. Unofficially however quango vacancies are used to reward political friends or to buy some people's loyalty or support.

Re: quango

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Heeee. Quango explained :)

Btw, weekend after next is better for me than this one.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

She does look very glamorous...

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Hmm, if that is the case with Elizabeth, I am all for it.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It does look soooooo good.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oooooh.What is it about?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Re: Bess. That's pretty neat! Not super sanitary but neat.

I like Kiera so she doesn't bother me :)

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

Just to warn you ... "Last King of Scotland" is ... well, really really gruesome in parts (and I don't usually get grossed out by movie stuff, but this one ... yes!) On the plus side, Forrest Whitaker is AMAZING and I really liked James McAvoy in it.

My one issue with "Atonement" (OK, my second issue, the first being Keira Knightley) is that the book was so devastatingly, uncompromisingly sad and tragic that I just don't know if I can sit through a movie where I KNOW the ending is going to break my heart. Still, it just looks so gorgeous, that I may well have to try. (Do you know when it's meant to open in the US?)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

From what I recall reading at the time, Cate Blanchett doesn't like to do sequels at all(you'll notice virtually every movie she's been in has no room for one...LOTR doesn't count, as it's a movie in 3 parts) and only agreed because it WASN'T a sequel, just another movie about Elizabeth Tudor. And, let's face it, she really is the best qualified person out there for the role.

[sinclair-furie.livejournal.com]

Ian McEwan! Kiera Knightley!
YAY FOR THE PRETTY!

[katranna.livejournal.com]

Huh, the movie trailer I saw definitely had it as Elizabeth II: The Golden Age....

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Marketting, maybe? Or what I read could just be Cate Blanchett fans making noise. Who knows.

All I know for a fact is that the trailer looks amazing.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Idi Amin did have some odd culinary tastes after all...

Atonement is opening in the US December 7. The book made me cry until my eyes were swollen, so I think I just might embarass myself in the theater. All the rviews I read of the adaptation (which were raves) said it was very faithful to the book...

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Indeed :)

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

Hee! Oddly enough, actually, apparently the culinary thing is all calumny – he was plenty awful, but not as bad as, was it Bokassa? But … um … there is some dismemberment. That’s all I’m going to say!

Shucks, I think I’m going to miss “Atonement” in the theaters then, but I’ll be sure to put it on my Netflix queue for as soon as it comes out on DVD!