Speaker 1: We're Tom and Lebrend and this is the Bitter Kitten
Speaker 1: Movie Club. Hellicans. Welcome back to another edition of the
Speaker 1: b k MC, a supplemental edition of the PSO Podcast
Speaker 1: where we take a look at one movie per week,
Speaker 1: unpack it, and talk the hell out of it. This
Speaker 1: week's movie is a director Joe Wright's Atonement from two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, starring Kieren Knightley and James McAboy and
Speaker 1: a whole slew of up and coming British and Irish
Speaker 1: stars like Cir Saronan and Juno Temple and be A c.
Speaker 1: Cumber Batch.
Speaker 2: I had completely forgotten about this movie. The only thing
Speaker 2: I remember when we talked about it, it was like,
Speaker 2: all right, the dress. I remember the dress, and which
Speaker 2: we will talk about. But my point is that I
Speaker 2: completely forgot all these people in the movie. My god,
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: Know, and they're all young. Maybe it's because I wrote
Speaker 1: that piece about the dress, but most of it was
Speaker 1: still pretty fresh in my heart.
Speaker 2: I completely forgot about everybody. I mean everybody. You named
Speaker 2: Sir Sharonan like a baby.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's a baby in this all right. Let me
Speaker 1: ask you this because there was you know, I'm watching
Speaker 1: this film, and I honestly don't know how many times
Speaker 1: I've seen it. I don't think I've seen it more
Speaker 1: than maybe three times. It's not like some obsessive watch
Speaker 1: of mine. But I could not place myself in the
Speaker 1: mindset of a first time viewer. So I'm I don't know.
Speaker 1: Do you think the twist at the end is surprising?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: It is? Oh, okay, I can't tell. I've seen it,
Speaker 1: so I know it, and I think is it?
Speaker 2: I think there are clever things and we'll talk them
Speaker 2: all right, Okay, but first of all, we have to
Speaker 2: remember that it's based on a book. So when yes,
Speaker 2: when something like any movie based on a book, they
Speaker 2: have to sort of follow the book.
Speaker 1: Yes, so I adapt it.
Speaker 2: Yes. My point is that it does feel like a
Speaker 2: book every now and then I see that, and you know,
Speaker 2: but it's I think it's a great story. I do too,
Speaker 2: beautifully done, I think, And it's one of those movies
Speaker 2: I'm watching it. I'm like, man, those British people.
Speaker 1: They really know their shit. Now, well, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's and this is one of the things that I
Speaker 1: do actually really like about the film is that it,
Speaker 1: in terms of its themes and setting and the milieu.
Speaker 1: It couldn't be more English. Oh, it starts in an English
Speaker 1: country house with spoiled, snobby people, and then it's World
Speaker 1: War two, and then it's like, you know, London during
Speaker 1: the war and nurses and soldiers and Dunkirk and overwriting
Speaker 1: the entire thing as secrets and sexual repression and scammed. Well,
Speaker 1: so on some level it is a quintessentially English sort
Speaker 1: of story. And what I really like about the film
Speaker 1: and what Joe Wright has done is the way it
Speaker 1: avoids lingering too long on any of that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I do think it spends too much time at don Kirk,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into that, but the scenes on the
Speaker 1: estate in the beginning of the film are so subtle.
Speaker 1: And I just want to note that this movie, it's
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven. It comes out at almost a
Speaker 1: perfect halfway point between Robert Altman's Gosford Park, which came
Speaker 1: out in two thousand and one with Maggie Smith, and
Speaker 1: Downton Abbey, which came out in two thousand and nine
Speaker 1: or twenty ten. It's in that period where there was
Speaker 1: just a lot of movies and TV shows about English
Speaker 1: country houses and the problem with those stories is that
Speaker 1: they all unpack relatively the same themes over and over
Speaker 1: and over again. In fact, that's why there have been
Speaker 1: so many Downton Abbey parodies in the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: is because we've all seen these fucking stories, right. And
Speaker 1: what I like is that Wright is he doesn't linger
Speaker 1: on any of those cliches. He doesn't make them the
Speaker 1: point of the story, but he lets some sort of
Speaker 1: color the story. I'm going to talk about a specific scene.
Speaker 1: It's just where Kiera Knightley and her brother are on
Speaker 1: that like barge on the on the lake with a
Speaker 1: diving board with Benedict Comber.
Speaker 2: Badge looking incredible. Who Benedett, Yes, god, so young and
Speaker 2: well he's so young, yeah, and handsome. She looks, Oh
Speaker 2: my god, everybody everybody looks.
Speaker 1: So anyway, they're all doing banter, and she actually does
Speaker 1: say at one point that she's not friendly with James
Speaker 1: McAvoy's character anymore because we don't run in the same crowds.
Speaker 1: And then at another point, Kira and her brother, I
Speaker 1: don't know the brother's name, maybe Leon, right, Bennedict Cumber
Speaker 1: batches speaking and the two of them exchange looks and
Speaker 1: Benedict Cumberbatch catches it, and nothing is made of this.
Speaker 1: In fact, Benedict Cumberbatch is largely the villain of one
Speaker 1: of the villains of the piece by the end of
Speaker 1: the film. But it just sort of underlines these people
Speaker 1: are fucking snobs, even to people of their own because
Speaker 1: Benedict was you know, he was wealthy. He was the
Speaker 1: one with the money. Yeah, he was the son of
Speaker 1: a manufacturer or whatever chocolate. But that family is so
Speaker 1: those country house families, Like they all put on their
Speaker 1: tiaras and they're out in the middle of the like,
Speaker 1: it's so snobby. And I love that the that right
Speaker 1: did not shy away from that, showing you know, these
Speaker 1: people are all snobs, but not lingering on it too much,
Speaker 1: because the other aspect of the story is that James
Speaker 1: McAvoy is a servant's son who is you know, invited
Speaker 1: to dinner and allowed to walk through the front door,
Speaker 1: but as soon as someone says something bad about him,
Speaker 1: they all turn on him immediately, and so there's classism.
Speaker 1: Can't get more English than a story about classism and snobbery.
Speaker 1: But again, it does not linger too much on that.
Speaker 1: It does not have people talking about that constantly. He
Speaker 1: only mentions it near the end of the film.
Speaker 2: I think everything is very subtle.
Speaker 1: That's the point. I'm trying to make you figure.
Speaker 2: Things out as the viewer. But you know, he's just
Speaker 2: a He's just a line here and there. But it
Speaker 2: didn't just set up is interesting. The house is goings stunning,
Speaker 2: the costumes are beautiful, and everybody's really, really, really good.
Speaker 1: There's not a single person that's bad in this. I
Speaker 1: will say that Harriet Walter, who plays the mother, is
Speaker 1: kind of wasted in this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't see much Juno Temple. My god, I
Speaker 2: was like, what baby, I know, and I'm like, what
Speaker 2: are you doing there? I forgot you. Yeah, everybody everybody
Speaker 2: was great.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, But like Juno Temple's storyline, again, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of subtlety in how that is presented. Is she a
Speaker 1: young girl who lied about who her rapist was? Or
Speaker 1: is she a young girl who got caught having sex
Speaker 1: with someone she shouldn't have and let that story because
Speaker 1: I think the film I was watching the wedding scene
Speaker 1: and I don't know, are you supposed to believe this tragic?
Speaker 1: She wound up marrying her rapist? And I or is
Speaker 1: she just a villain who just lied about being caught
Speaker 1: with an older man and wound up marrying him again subtlety.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not very clear if she just went with
Speaker 2: the story.
Speaker 1: Is she a tragic character or is she a bit
Speaker 1: That's really what it comes down to, and you don't know.
Speaker 1: The film does not really tell you either way. Although yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean she's still about her rape. I mean she's
Speaker 1: still you know, if Bennett Cumberbatch had raped her, why
Speaker 1: wouldn't she tell the truth about that? So I guess
Speaker 1: it comes down on the side of villainy. And that's
Speaker 1: a little dicey is when you make a rape a
Speaker 1: rape lie the center of your story, because you know,
Speaker 1: it gets into old tropes.
Speaker 2: About complicated you know, maybe at you have to take
Speaker 2: to understand that at the time, maybe she was kind
Speaker 2: of forced to marry him or who do you don't know.
Speaker 1: It's the film exactly. The film does not come down
Speaker 1: hard on any of this. It's it's a really interesting
Speaker 1: approach because and I guess that's the point is that
Speaker 1: the ambiguity is supposed to be what fuels the story.
Speaker 1: The other thing I think about him, his directing and
Speaker 1: the writing of the film, which is very smart. And
Speaker 1: Ian McEwan, who wrote the book, is one of the
Speaker 1: co writers of the film, so that it has something
Speaker 1: to do with it. The way the film plays with time,
Speaker 1: it'll show you a scene and then it'll go back
Speaker 1: and show you the seen from a slightly different perspective
Speaker 1: or angle or like that. I always like that. Well,
Speaker 1: the thing is, the story is relatively straightforward. If you
Speaker 1: were to tell it in a chronological manner, if you
Speaker 1: were to not be ambiguous about what you were trying
Speaker 1: to say, then you would have a very straightforward story.
Speaker 1: But it probably wouldn't be very interesting. In fact, you
Speaker 1: would you wouldn't have that twist at the end. It
Speaker 1: would just all play out normally. So in order to
Speaker 1: make the story more interesting, you have to have that
Speaker 1: sort of playing around with the time to the timeline.
Speaker 1: There is a question hanging over the film that I
Speaker 1: would love to get into, but I think that's going
Speaker 1: to be after our first break. Let's talk about the
Speaker 1: production design. We will talk about the dress the production design.
Speaker 1: First off, that house which I was shocked to find
Speaker 1: out that house was only built in the late nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: I would have thought it was built like a sixteen.
Speaker 1: What I want to point out is that, uh, there's
Speaker 1: some there's a lot of themes and visual motifs in
Speaker 1: the film. One of them is water. We see her
Speaker 1: diving into that pond, or we see her diving into
Speaker 1: that fountain. They're on that lake, they're on the beach
Speaker 1: at Dunkirk, and of course she drowns at the end
Speaker 1: of the film. Well, I mean, oh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I need to do spoil our
Speaker 1: alerts for this podcast, you know, and and once you
Speaker 1: know that, you can look for them, and it's it's
Speaker 1: an artful way of using that. And and similarly, I
Speaker 1: think it's a bit of a subtle foreshadowing is that,
Speaker 1: you know, James McAvoy is sitting in his his like
Speaker 1: bedroom or whatever and whatever shack his mother lives in,
Speaker 1: and he's looking over a skylight and a bomber flies
Speaker 1: over her head. And again I feel like that's a
Speaker 1: subtle absolute. Another subtle point is that that scene on
Speaker 1: an incredibly romantic scene where she gets on the bus
Speaker 1: and they're parted, and she's in her nurse's uniform and
Speaker 1: he's in his soldier's uniform. It could not be anywhere English.
Speaker 1: And the bus is going to the station where she
Speaker 1: eventually dies, it's on the back of the bus. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's all of that. And the other thing that I
Speaker 1: want to point out, which I love, is all of
Speaker 1: the floral motifs in the film, and I don't know
Speaker 1: that they have anything more to do with it except
Speaker 1: that argument that she has with Robbie with the vase
Speaker 1: by the fountain is what initiates everything. It all starts
Speaker 1: in that moment, and everything falls apart after that moment,
Speaker 1: and it's all about those flowers. And so if you
Speaker 1: go into the house, that house is choking with flowers,
Speaker 1: every upholstered item, every pillow, every wallpapery, curtain, and sometimes
Speaker 1: like that children's playroom that they're in, there's like six
Speaker 1: different florals going on in that room. Now, that's pretty
Speaker 1: much of the time of the period of the style
Speaker 1: for that kind of house. But I you know, production
Speaker 1: design choices are choices, and I felt like this was
Speaker 1: a visual motif that was tying that moment, that moment
Speaker 1: at the fountain with the rest of the story, right,
Speaker 1: the whole thing, the vase and all.
Speaker 2: Pause because it's you know, it's not very clear why
Speaker 2: you think that's so important, because she makes the point
Speaker 2: that it's one of our most valuable Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think the vase itself actually means anything.
Speaker 1: I think she was using as an excuse to go outside,
Speaker 1: like she wanted to see him. If you want to
Speaker 1: fill up a vase, why would you carry it all
Speaker 1: the way outside to it. I order she wanted to
Speaker 1: see him. You know. It's those two were hot for
Speaker 1: each other, crazy, crazy hot for each other. And I'm assuming,
Speaker 1: because again the doesn't spell these things out, that class
Speaker 1: issues were keeping them apart. She was clearly a snob.
Speaker 1: I mean, she was very clearly a snob. She even
Speaker 1: thought Benedict Cumberbatch's character was beneath her, So how was
Speaker 1: she going to date the cooks, you know, son or whatever.
Speaker 2: But the whole water thing is interesting because there's also
Speaker 2: sircial Ronan's character. She jumps into water too.
Speaker 1: Again, that's yeah, that's another example, and they show that,
Speaker 1: they show them underwater like that, and then they show
Speaker 1: Kara Knightley at the end floating in that tube station underwater.
Speaker 1: I think all of that is rather artfully done.
Speaker 2: I think the I think the movie did a very
Speaker 2: good job if you're watch him for the first time
Speaker 2: not really knowing what's going on and what's real and
Speaker 2: was what's not real? And I thought that was very clever. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but you only find out that towards the end, when
Speaker 2: when you're actually talking to old Sircier Ronan's character.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a short break. I'm gonna unpack that.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll be right back picking up.
Speaker 1: We're back picking up on your last point, Lorenzo. I
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting again because I could not put
Speaker 1: myself in the place of someone who didn't know where
Speaker 1: the story was going. And it'll be interesting if any
Speaker 1: of you listening had did watch this for the first time.
Speaker 1: I would really be interested in hearing your thoughts on this,
Speaker 1: because I felt like kind of by the time you
Speaker 1: got to Dunkirk. And I do think that scene went
Speaker 1: on too long. It's one of the few criticisms I
Speaker 1: have of the film is that the World War two
Speaker 1: France scenes just went on too long. And I actually
Speaker 1: might have wanted a little bit more of Briany at
Speaker 1: the hospital and all that, or even Cecilia at the hospital.
Speaker 1: Karen Knightley's character. But by the time you get to
Speaker 1: Dunkirk and they're wandering that beach and my god, that
Speaker 1: scene did go on long. It's an impressively shot scene,
Speaker 1: but it did go on along. You're starting to get
Speaker 1: the sense of this is not going to be a romance,
Speaker 1: like there's not to be a happy ending here. You
Speaker 1: sort of get that sense. Am I wrong?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I again, if you haven't read the book, if
Speaker 2: you watching the movie for the first time, you kind
Speaker 2: of you want them to be together.
Speaker 1: Of course, wonderful together. You want them to.
Speaker 2: Get together at some point, but you don't know if
Speaker 2: that's going to happen, if one of them is going
Speaker 2: to die. I mean, you keep wondering the whole time.
Speaker 2: And I think the movie does a very good job.
Speaker 2: And I don't know. Again, I haven't read the book.
Speaker 2: Maybe the book has a like a whole chapter about
Speaker 2: the you know, him going to war, But.
Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately it's whether it works as in the
Speaker 1: film or not. I thought it was.
Speaker 2: I thought it was interesting too, to give you some
Speaker 2: perspective of what was going on at the time. I
Speaker 2: think that's watching those scenes, I'm like, oh, holy shit, man.
Speaker 1: I do think it's very good at reminding you. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: you know, World War two was brutal as ship. It
Speaker 1: was incredibly.
Speaker 2: Broaching watching those scenes. What came to my mind was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: you were in the pretty house and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: now you're you're taking care of dead bodies, you know,
Speaker 2: because that's the reality of what happened. Right, So I
Speaker 2: think the movie does a good job.
Speaker 1: I actually really I know, apparently the scene with Briany
Speaker 1: and the French soldier with the head wound in the hospital,
Speaker 1: uh huh. The director had to fight to get that
Speaker 1: in because, like you know, the the studio didn't think
Speaker 1: there was a need for that scene, and maybe there
Speaker 1: isn't a need for that scene, but I really did
Speaker 1: think it was you know it. I think it's a
Speaker 1: necessary overall theme about the brutality of those years and
Speaker 1: what it did to the English people.
Speaker 2: And also what she put Robbie through, you know. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that's a good point because she's she's looking
Speaker 2: at what what what happened to those people? Yeah, and
Speaker 2: because of what she did, he's in that position. Now.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the dress, and then we're
Speaker 1: going to jump into talking about Briany, because that's my
Speaker 1: overriding question here. Is Briany a villain or is she
Speaker 1: just a girl who made a terrible mistake?
Speaker 2: Don't get into that later. The dress, The dress, My god.
Speaker 1: I have written a lot about this dress. We wrote
Speaker 1: a piece on it like six years ago on our site,
Speaker 1: going to link to it. I don't have much more
Speaker 1: to say that hasn't been said in that piece, but
Speaker 1: I will point out Jacqueline Duran is the costume designer,
Speaker 1: and it's one of the few dresses on that has
Speaker 1: its own Wikipedia entry. There's only about ten dresses.
Speaker 2: It's insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's fair to say it's one of
Speaker 1: the most iconic gowns cinematic gowns of the twenty first century,
Speaker 1: but I definitely I would also place it as one
Speaker 1: of the most iconic gowns in cinema history period. One
Speaker 1: of the things that stands out about that gown is
Speaker 1: you might not realize it because it feels so perfectly
Speaker 1: of the moment, it's actually not. There's a lot about
Speaker 1: that gown that no one in nineteen thirty five would
Speaker 1: have broughtn has spaghetti straps, and that was not a
Speaker 1: thing in nineteen thirty five. There's a laser cut lace
Speaker 1: in the bodice, and obviously that wasn't a thing in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty five. The way it's gathered on the front
Speaker 1: and everything, even the shape of the skirt, the shape
Speaker 1: of the skirt is extremely full for nineteen thirty If
Speaker 1: you think of like gowns, like silk bias cut gowns
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty five, you're looking at like Carol Lombard
Speaker 1: and Jean Harlow and those screen sirens, and those gowns
Speaker 1: were sleek. I mean, Jean Harlowe famously, I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: you a little bit of she had a shave or
Speaker 1: bush because she couldn't wear she had to be naked
Speaker 1: under those gowns, and they were so clingy that she
Speaker 1: had to, you know, keep herself hair free down there.
Speaker 1: That's how clingy those gowns were. Because of her Fabri
Speaker 1: has a lot of drape and flow. When she walks
Speaker 1: out of the front door and it is just billowing
Speaker 1: around her. It's really not nineteen thirty five, but it's
Speaker 1: a stunner the go it is. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: she never looked more beautiful on film. My god, just
Speaker 1: never ever total supermodel. In that moment, they don't even think.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously Karen Knightley's beautiful, but in that moment,
Speaker 1: it's like, holy cow, I think cinematic professions.
Speaker 2: She's a beautiful woman, but she's not like gorgeous, drop
Speaker 2: dead like well people expect of, you know, that type
Speaker 2: of beauty. But in that moment, in that moment, Johnny,
Speaker 2: that shade of green is just perfection everything about everything
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: And if you want to get into symbolism, like that
Speaker 1: green it evokes all of the grasses and wildlife that's
Speaker 1: around her. But green also has a has a an
Speaker 1: underlying implication of poison and also magic. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of all bound up in in that color is that
Speaker 1: there's the natural world, there is the magic of her,
Speaker 1: just a vision of her right and the fact that
Speaker 1: you know her life and his life are ruined after
Speaker 1: she wears that gown. And one of the things I
Speaker 1: pointed out when we wrote about that gown is anytime
Speaker 1: you see someone pickin item, pick something out of a
Speaker 1: closet and get dressed on camera, there's a reason for that.
Speaker 1: They want you to look at that outfit. They want
Speaker 1: you to understand that that outfit has meaning. Think of
Speaker 1: every makeover sen you ever saw that. There's a reason
Speaker 1: you're shown her choosing and picking that dress. It's important.
Speaker 1: And I also want to note I think the sex
Speaker 1: scene is both very sexy and a little disturbing. And
Speaker 1: it's sexy when you're in their perspective and when you
Speaker 1: look at it from Briany's perspective. He does a very
Speaker 1: good job of shooting that in a manner where you're like,
Speaker 1: what the hell is going on there?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: What like because a thirteen year old girl in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty five would not have.
Speaker 2: Known, right, I do think, well, she makes a point
Speaker 2: that she was in love with him, so I think
Speaker 2: there's also that there's a little bit of jealousy there
Speaker 2: and why her and all that. I don't think she's
Speaker 2: completely naive about the whole thing. I think she's a
Speaker 2: child and misunderstood, you know, but you.
Speaker 1: Really think she didn't understand it was Bennetict Cumberbatch. No
Speaker 1: until the wedding, because that's what it's implied.
Speaker 2: No, I know she knew, she knew it wasn't him.
Speaker 1: She did that.
Speaker 2: I think because she was pissed. She was annoyed as
Speaker 2: a child, she was annoyed.
Speaker 1: I think there's a bit of that, But I don't
Speaker 1: know how deliberate she was in nineteen thirty five, And
Speaker 1: I think, if you want to get into it, I
Speaker 1: don't think a thirteen year old girl in that setting,
Speaker 1: in that time period, I don't think she should be
Speaker 1: judged too harshly for making that kind of mistake, even
Speaker 1: if it was caught up in her own feelings, in
Speaker 1: her own sexual repression, which it clearly was. But my
Speaker 1: take is everything she does after that, including right up
Speaker 1: until Vanessa Redgrave at the end, uh, huh, villain, don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think she's a villain. I think she can't
Speaker 2: deal with her guilt. I think, Okay, I think she
Speaker 2: just can't. She can't come to terms with that, that
Speaker 2: she's a reason why all that happened, you know. And
Speaker 2: and and I think one of the uh, one of
Speaker 2: the beautiful things about the movie, I think is that
Speaker 2: if you haven't read the book, if you don't know anything,
Speaker 2: you really believe that they got together. And that's a
Speaker 2: I thought that was very clever.
Speaker 1: I mean, I believe I believed.
Speaker 2: And because you hate Brownie's character so much. I mean,
Speaker 2: at least I did. I mean, I hated that girl
Speaker 2: for doing what she did. Uh, you wanted a scene
Speaker 2: because I hate when movies don't give you a scene
Speaker 2: when the people get confronted by something. I absolutely hate that. No,
Speaker 2: I need that, I need. So I think that's very
Speaker 2: clever that we got that. We got him to confront
Speaker 2: her and talk about, you know, well, that shitty thing
Speaker 2: she did.
Speaker 1: And that was her choice to do it that way. Yes,
Speaker 1: And to me, I think at the end of the film,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of this is in Red
Speaker 1: Gregg's performance, because she's so good and she's so subtle.
Speaker 1: I think there's a tremendous amount of delusion and shame
Speaker 1: in that final choice. And I think when she's basically
Speaker 1: appealing directly to the audience and saying I gave them that,
Speaker 1: I gave them their happiness, and it's like, you, lying,
Speaker 1: piece of shit. No, you didn't know. You didn't. You
Speaker 1: wrote a happy ending so that your final book could
Speaker 1: have a happy ending. If you were braver about it,
Speaker 1: you would have put that in the book. But she didn't.
Speaker 1: She waited until she was giving it her final interview
Speaker 1: or whatever. And I thought that no.
Speaker 2: I thought that was weird that, like, Okay, you gave
Speaker 2: a happy end in the book, but then you give
Speaker 2: the interview.
Speaker 1: I think she I think she felt I don't know.
Speaker 1: Actually that's actually a good point. I think I don't
Speaker 1: know if she was ever planning on telling the truth,
Speaker 1: or if that was an impulse she had for her
Speaker 1: final interview because she was dying. I think it should
Speaker 1: be pointed out it was a clever choice, but you
Speaker 1: have to sort of bring yourself out of the film
Speaker 1: for a second to deal with it was to have
Speaker 1: her have this hairstyle in all three eras, which is
Speaker 1: not how people live. And that was very specifically a
Speaker 1: little girl's hairstyle in nineteen thirty five, and by the
Speaker 1: time you get to Vanessa Redgrave in like two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven or whatever, it looks ridiculous on her. And
Speaker 1: that's the point, Like there was some It's one of
Speaker 1: those examples that comes up when people criticize films for
Speaker 1: giving a character the same hairstyle. But that woman was stuck.
Speaker 1: She was stuck in nineteen thirty five and she never
Speaker 1: moved past it. The guilt of that has literally crippled
Speaker 1: her as a person. She is. She's broken at the end.
Speaker 1: I think she's a really broken person. And I think
Speaker 1: that is it's a multiple tragedy. It's like the tragedy
Speaker 1: of Robbie and Cecilia and how they died and they
Speaker 1: could never get together. But it's also the tragedy of Briany,
Speaker 1: who just was a broken person for her entire life,
Speaker 1: who never ever moved past this much. I think it's the.
Speaker 2: Movie's clever also, like when they she has the conversation
Speaker 2: with the two main characters, Robbie and Cecilia about coming clean,
Speaker 2: you know, and telling the whole story and tell them,
Speaker 2: telling everybody the whole story. But she can't do that
Speaker 2: anymore because Juno Temple's character Lula is right, right, right.
Speaker 2: So I think that's brilliant because okay, did obviously obviously
Speaker 2: that didn't happen, But did you at some point had
Speaker 2: the conversation with somebody, you know, to compleat They.
Speaker 1: Don't tell you any of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't tell you any of that, and you
Speaker 2: don't know, You really don't know what happened. The only
Speaker 2: thing you know is that he went to Wars. She went.
Speaker 2: She became a nurse to help and apparently they never met, right,
Speaker 2: they never.
Speaker 1: I think you're supposed to believe that that scene, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, Vanessa Redgrave at the end says,
Speaker 1: I researched all the scenes that I was not present for.
Speaker 1: I think the scene on the bus where they parted
Speaker 1: ways happened. You must have happened, although I don't know
Speaker 1: how Briany would have known about it unless there were letters. Right,
Speaker 1: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's not clear.
Speaker 1: It's not clear.
Speaker 2: It's not clear everything, right, That's why the Maeter the
Speaker 2: country house is up for interpretation. You don't know what happened.
Speaker 2: That's why I love them. And I mean, maybe I'll
Speaker 2: read the book to find out how it's done in
Speaker 2: the book. I thought that was very clever because because
Speaker 2: you kind of believe all that and then you find
Speaker 2: out that that actually didn't happen, which makes things even sadder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, now that I think about it, that
Speaker 1: scene of them saying goodbye when when she gets on
Speaker 1: the bus, it's so overly romantic, and like I said,
Speaker 1: it's such a cliche of English war films that it
Speaker 1: probably didn't happen. No, it probably didn't happen.
Speaker 2: Didn't. I don't think they ever met again. You're probably right.
Speaker 1: Although there were letters, weren't there, And in fact, they
Speaker 1: showed they showed his friend in Dunkirk taking the letters,
Speaker 1: and I think that must have been maybe she.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, maybe he got letters but never saw her.
Speaker 1: Right, I think they yes. But my point is might
Speaker 1: have indicated that they did. Oh you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: like they might that's maybe she read the letters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe she read because she talked about the country cottage
Speaker 1: by the sea, and that was a literal postcard on
Speaker 1: top of that pile of letters, and she would have
Speaker 1: had to have seen those letters at some point. Interesting.
Speaker 1: It's a very thought provoking film.
Speaker 2: I thought it was a beautiful movie. I think it's
Speaker 2: a beautiful movie. And yeah, it made me said a
Speaker 2: couple of times, and actually it is. I was like,
Speaker 2: this is really it's sad story, but very interesting, really
Speaker 2: well done. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I did too
Speaker 2: watching it again.
Speaker 1: So we will have a piece up on the site
Speaker 1: today unpacking some of this stuff further, with lots of
Speaker 1: pictures and that sort of thing. We'd love to hear
Speaker 1: what you all thought of it, and we'll be back
Speaker 1: next week. I'm sorry I didn't check the Bitter Kitten
Speaker 1: roster for next week. I can't remember what next week's
Speaker 1: film is, but we'll be back next week.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna get but it isn't Abett's face.
Speaker 1: Maybe it is by my favorite You're correct, it is
Speaker 1: Babbett's face. Lorenzo's favorite film of all time. We did
Speaker 1: Wings of Desire, which was my favorite film of all time. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, so we'll be back next week with Bibbett's face.
Speaker 1: Until then, take care of yourself. Love you mean it.
Speaker 2: Bye bye bye