If it was good enough for Venice then it's good enough for us! Atonement, an adaptation of Ian McEwan's award-winning novel, has been chosen to open the first Middle East International Film Festival (MEIFF).
And just a few weeks ago, the same was true at the renowned Venice Film Festival where, at just 35 years old, Bafta award-winning director Joe Wright was announced as the youngest director to ever receive such an accolade.
An incessant flash of photographers' clicking cameras as Wright strolled effortlessly down the red carpet made for a heady night — but it was the aftermath which promised even more.
Critics who have seen Atonement have reacted with breathless superlatives, and its showing at Venice and subsequently in the UAE will almost certainly catapult Wright into the ranks of world-class film directors.
Rreunited
In Atonement, Wright has reunited with his filmmaking team and his Academy Award-nominated actress, Keira Knightley, for another classic British romance, starring James McAvoy (previously lauded for his work in The Last King of Scotland) opposite Knightley.
Christopher Hampton (Academy Award winner for Dangerous Liaisons) wrote the screenplay of Ian McEwan's best-selling 2002 novel. Shot on location in the UK, the story spans several decades.
Given that Atonement is only the second feature film Wright has directed (the first was his version of Pride and Prejudice, with Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet), it seems he has come very far, very fast. Yet he has a different view.
"It doesn't feel that way," he says. "I'd made 14 hours' worth of TV drama before ever making a feature. It was nice on Pride and Prejudice — everyone treated me like a first-time director. But actually I'd done a bit of this before. So I feel it's a progression all the way from Nature Boy [a four-hour mini-series from 2000] to this.
"I don't think Atonement is perfect, but as Samuel Beckett said, ‘Fail again, but fail better.' And I know I failed better on Atonement than on Pride and Prejudice."
Few would dispute it. Working with Hampton, Wright has fashioned a ravishing adaptation that stays largely faithful to McEwan's complex narrative, including its three-act structure.
Home-grown
If Atonement feels like a triumph, it's a totally British one. Every scene was shot in England (Redcar doubled for Dunkirk's dunes), the film is produced by the UK company Working Title, and almost all the cast and crew are locals, apart from a notable exception with Saoirse Ronan, who plays 13-year-old Briony, who is Irish.
It's a picture with a strong directorial hand; Wright's influence is evident in some delightful touches.
Young Briony is introduced with a musical theme based on the rhythms of clacking typewriter keys, establishing her as a storyteller. "I suggested it to [composer] Dario Marianelli," Wright admits.
Wright is clearly attentive to his actors. Romola Garai and the consistent McAvoy are as good as they have ever been on screen, while young Ronan is a real discovery. As for Knightley, she responds better to Wright than to any other director; the brittle, haughty Cecilia, a young woman who keeps her emotions bottled up, is easily her best work to date.
Wright caused a stir last year by berating Bafta's British voters, who denied Knightley a best-actress nomination for playing Elizabeth Bennet. As voters for the Oscars and Golden Globes saw fit to nominate her, the snub seemed doubly harsh, and may have owed something to her celebrity and prominence in gossip magazines. But after Atonement, it's unlikely she will need Wright to spring to her defence again.
Idyllic
"It isn't her fault," Wright protests. "I know some actors court the media, and Keira doesn't. She's incredibly beautiful, so she gets to be the face of Chanel, and that's great for a few bob, so good luck to her. But when she's making a film, that's all she cares about.
"When we made Atonement, the cast, some crew and I all stayed together in an old rented farmhouse in Shropshire, England. We had breakfast, lunch and dinner there, and lived together in this basic but idyllic way. And we made a film down the road, five minutes away. That was our little world, and we couldn't have been happier. It was heaven, and it had nothing to do with Hello! magazine."
— with inputs from the Telegraph Group Limited, London 2007
The story of atonement
In 1935, 13-year-old fledgling writer Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) and her family live a life of wealth and privilege in their enormous mansion. On the warmest day of the year, the country estate takes on an unsettling hothouse atmosphere, stoking Briony's vivid imagination.
Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), the educated son of the family housekeeper, carries a torch for Briony's headstrong older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley). Cecilia, he hopes, has comparable feelings; all it will take is one spark for this relationship to combust.
When it does, Briony, who has a crush on Robbie, is compelled to interfere, going so far as accusing Robbie of a crime he did not commit.
Cecilia and Robbie declare their love for each other, but he is arrested and with Briony bearing false witness, the course of three lives is changed forever. Briony later seeks forgiveness for her childhood misdeed. Through a terrible and courageous act of imagination, she finds the path to her uncertain atonement, and to an understanding of the power of enduring love.
Did you know?
The small English town of Redcar stood in for the French city of Dunkirk.
Both Emily Watson and Kristin Scott Thomas were approached to play Emily Tallis.
The four-and-a-half minute long shot through the Dunkirk beach scenes took less than five takes to film.
Romola Garai shot her scenes in four days.
The Dunkirk street scenes and generator room scenes were filmed on Grimsby Docks.
Joe Wright had wanted Keira Knightley to play the role of Briony in her late teens, but Knightley immediately liked the character of Cecilia, and also wanted to play a more mature character for once.
James McAvoy considered the script the best he had ever read.
The opening film of the 2007's Venice Film Festival. Director Joe Wright, at 35, is the youngest director to have a film open this prestigious event.
To capture the feel of wartime England, Joe Wright watched many 40s British films such as Rebecca (1940) and Brief Encounter (1945), the latter which proved to be a major influence on Wright's direction.
