Costume Critique: The Atonement

Following my last week critique's on the costumes in Anna Karenina, I decided that the next best film to critique is Atonement. Although one may say that I am only doing this because I am deeply in love with Keira Knightley (which is true, actually), I am more intrigued by the popularity of Cecilia's (Knightley) green dress. In fact, that dress was voted as the "Best Costume of All Time" by Sky Movies and readers of In Style.

Atonement is a film adaptation of Ian McEwan's 2001 novel of the same name. Set in 1935, the film includes several outstanding period costumes. However, Cecilia's green dress stands out the most and reviewed by many fashion experts. Jacqueline Durran, the same costume designer for Anna Karenina, was reported to create the green dress from scratch. She apprently wanted to make a dress that would both show off Cecilia's social status and elegance. The color, which is specifically "rich emerald green", was chosen by Joe Wright, the film's director. Although the dress was supposed to look like a "period piece", it had a modern style that attracts the fashion taste of the audience.

Cecilia's green dress also reveals the over-all mood of the film — mysterious. For some reasons that I cannot perfectly put into words, the elegance that Cecilia had while wearing the dress brings mystery to the movie. It resembles the color of a forbidden forest that houses secrets and hidden wonders. Evidently, one costume can do so much to help a film achieve the mood it needs to have.