McAvoy's talent comes through in Atonement

Date: December 6, 2007 Publication: Houston Chronicle Online Country: United States Author: Eric Harrison Excerpt: One can't be sure of much in this world, but after early screenings of Atonement one thing was all but certain to more than one movie journalist: James McAvoy is going to be a major star.

The full article... One can't be sure of much in this world, but after early screenings of Atonement one thing was all but certain to more than one movie journalist: James McAvoy is going to be a major star. The slightly built Scottish actor dominates every scene in which he appears, which is some feat considering he often shares the screen with the ravishing Keira Knightley and the film is put-together with an audacity that suggests its director wanted to keep a portion of the attention for himself. Oscar buzz has swarmed around McAvoy as well as the film in general since it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. "James McAvoy will break out big time," Anne Thompson of Variety gushed. That would seem a safe bet even if the blue-eyed, 28-year-old actor hadn't graced a recent cover of Esquire magazine's British edition and made People magazine's list of sexiest men alive. The attention doesn't seem to faze him. "My life hasn't changed very much," said McAvoy during an interview the day after the movie's premiere. His star has been ascending for several years leading to this, but the low-key actor seemed as level-headed as Robbie Turner, the decent, working-class character he plays in Atonement. The son of a housekeeper, Robbie lives on the estate of a wealthy family in England in the 1930s. He is in love with Cecilia, the eldest daughter, though they don't acknowledge it at first because of class differences. With his Cambridge education paid for by the owner of the estate, Robbie is set to break out of the constraints imposed by England's rigid class structure when an accusation made by Cecilia's 13-year-old sister dooms his plans and forever alters the lives of all three young people. The story spans decades as the characters undergo tumultuous change. "One of the fascinating things about the project is that we see the characters in three different stages," McAvoy said. The first third of the film focuses on life on the estate, which seems placid but is agitated by unstated sexual and class tensions. The middle part follows Robbie, who has been imprisoned and then released into the army during World War II. The third part is dominated by Briony, the younger sister who now is aged and played by Vanessa Redgrave. Three actresses play the character in all. This structure was perfect for Knightley. "I find it incredibly hard to watch myself," she said. "Luckily, I'm only in a third of it so I could watch and enjoy the other two-thirds." She filmed the movie during a break from working on the last two Pirates of the Caribbean movies. "As much as it was a wonderful and amazing job," she said, "it was important to me to do something different. Pirates is a ride. It's an action movie. They're like action figures, those characters." Character-based films like Atonement, she said, "is why every actor wants to be part of this industry." Class struggle During a hurried lunch break in a day packed with promotional interviews, Joe Wright, the director, was overhead saying of Atonement, "In a sense it is an attack on the upper classes." Robbie, McAvoy's character, is between worlds — though treated as if he were part of the wealthy family, he will never quite be considered their equal. McAvoy found it easy to see himself in the role because of his own working-class background. Though, like Robbie, his future looks bright, the actor was largely raised in modest means by his grandparents after his parents divorced. "They recognized me in the character," he said of the filmmakers. Because of its setting and class-conscious subject matter, Atonement sounds as if it might be akin to an oh-so-proper Merchant-Ivory production. It is anything but that. It has a contemporary edge — its take on that way of life and on the classic 1930s and 1940s melodramas it references is filtered through modern eyes. There is a self-awareness about it. "I based my character on watching the Celia Johnson character in Brief Encounter, Knightley said, referring to David Lean's 1945 adaptation of a Noel Coward play. She and the other actors employed a 1940s style of British acting that's rarely seen on screen these days, she said. "We used very clipped British accents — the epitome of the stiff upper lip." She says it in the clipped way in which she spoke in the movie. "You will not find anyone in their 20s that talks like that today," said the 22-year-old. The story is very much in the lushly romantic vein of, say, The English Patient, but it's also a bit of a meta-fictional brain tease. McEwan's book was concerned with the act of creation. Briony, Cecilia's young imaginative sister, is a budding writer. Though she's too young to realize the consequences of her actions, what happens to the other characters is very much in her control. "It's what I loved about the book," McAvoy said. "It was the way the writer plays God, which is what film is after all." Wright moves Wright, the director, has made only one movie before this — 2005's well-received Pride and Prejudice. The showy, impressively mounted Atonement is the big stick with which the cinematic upstart is forcing his way into the house where his betters live. There is a good chance the film will dramatically improve the standing of both actors as well as the director. One shot in particular feels as if it were Wright's bid to supplant the dictionary definition of "breathtaking." It is the scene at Dunkirk where Allied soldiers in 1940 awaited evacuation. A thousand actors pass in front of the camera as it tracks through the phantasmagoric scene, past a gigantic beached boat, bombed out buildings, a Ferris wheel, soldiers on horseback, soldiers shooting their horses, a choir singing, men playing football. Wright films it in one carefully choreographed, jaw-dropping six-minute shot. The camera follows Robbie and two fellow soldiers as they wander through the scene. The actors and Peter Robertson, the camera operator, rehearsed the shot from 5 a.m. until 6 p.m., and then they shot it three complete times, McAvoy said. On the fourth try, Robertson collapsed. "He just couldn't carry that elephant any longer," McAvoy said of the Steadicam camera. "His legs just gave out." Robertson later tried to continue filming, but the third shot made it into the film. McAvoy's last big role was in The Last King of Scotland, in which he played a young doctor who comes under the brutal sway of Idi Amin. Forest Whitaker was so magnificent and overpowering as the Ugandan dictator that McAvoy's strong performance received less attention than it otherwise might have, though it was recognized within the industry and has resulted in better jobs. In Atonement, his biggest competitor is the film itself. If his performance here is any indication, don't expect to see this actor overshadowed again. [full-link]Read more •[/full-link]