In the well-crafted but ultimately stuffy period drama Atonement -- Joe Wright's adaptation of Ian McEwan's 2001 novel -- there is a powerfully raw moment of honest sensuality as Keira Knightley's Cecilia and James McAvoy's Robbie lock lips and bodies.
The background score gives way to awkward fumbling and groping as the servant's son presses the privileged daughter against a library bookshelf and readies to take her equally eager body, until they are rudely interrupted.
No, not just on screen by 13-year-old Briony (played by an infuriatingly good Sairse Ronan), but by Dario Marinelli's masterful background score, Seamus McGarvy's smooth (yet often indulgent) and restless camerawork, and a group of babbling, meticulously precious accents revelling in their Britishness.
Tragic, this: a film going from Real to Rehearsed.
Text: Raja Sen
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