‘Atonement’ review: Involving, balanced US-Iraq war drama stars a magnetic Hiam Abbass

Dir. Reed Van Dyk. US .2026. 118mins

A US Marine tries to emerge from the toxic fog of war in Atonement, an involving, soberly executed drama that is more about emotional and psychological forces than about geopolitical conflict per se. Based on a 2012 New Yorker article by Dexter Filkins, this study of the fallout from America’s intervention in Iraq may ostensibly seem to reproduce problematic aspects of cinema’s depiction of America at war, but in fact it is committed to working through those issues.

Successfully questions Hollywood cliches of war drama

A confidently executed debut from US writer-director Reed Van Dyk, known for his 2017 Oscar-nominated short DeKalb Elementary, Atonement features a terrific performance from Boyd Holbrook (The Bikeriders, A Complete Unknown, TV’s The Morning Show) and a characteristically magnetic Hiam Abbass, while Kenneth Branagh is modest and engaging in a  substantial screen role. Tough content may make this a hard sell domestically, although America’s renewed activity in the Middle East could hardly make this a more urgent watch; internationally, and potentially on the awards circuit, Atonement should make an impact.

Following true events recounted by Filkins, the film begins in Iraq in 2003, during the US invasion. The Kachadoorians, a Christian family, have temporarily moved home to escape their newly dangerous neighbourhood. But after a bomb blast, they decide to move back to their old house. While they are en route, a firefight erupts and the family, confused, drive onto a dangerous intersection. A squad of US Marines, positioned on a rooftop – and equally unclear about what is happening – fire on them, killing the husband and two adult sons of mother Mariam (Abbass).

Ten years later in California, a discharged Marine, Lou D’Alessandro (Holbrook) – one of a number of names that have been changed – is undergoing the sort of traumatic response that often afflicts former soldiers. Lou is retraining as a lawyer and holding together his vulnerable relationship with girlfriend Anna (Gratiela Brancusi). He has also contacted New Yorker journalist Michael Reid (Branagh), who previously reported on the Baghdad shootings for the New York Times – and is contending with emotional battle scars of his own.

Lou is eager for Michael to broker a meeting with Mariam, now living with her daughter Nora (Gheed) in Glendale, California. What he apparently seeks is some mixture of reconciliation, forgiveness, salving of his psychic wounds – what so often is glibly labelled ‘closure’. Here the film seems to enter uncomfortable territory: ever since the cycle of Vietnam cinema, it has been the norm for Hollywood movies to focus on the traumas sustained by American soldiers who have been involved in, or responsible for, brutalities in the field, and to sideline the victims from other nations. This is a problem, however, that Atonement is conscious of and confronts; while it depicts the intensity of Lou’s agonies, various characters question his motivations and possible selfishness.

These issues come into focus in the film’s final section, which – after individual chapters devoted to Lou, then Michael – centres on Mariam, seen at home in Glendale with Nora and her husband Assad (Maj Eid). This chapter begins by following Mariam through her normal routine in the hours before Lou and Michael visit. Abbass speaks little during these scenes, but the quietly magnetic intensity of her presence prepares us for the emotional charge of a supremely delicate meeting.

Van Dyk shows himself adept both at kinetic war action and the everyday, the most powerful confrontation here happening in the domestic calm of the finale. The opening sequences establish the Iraqi perspective as our primary focus before the American story kicks in – with Van Dyk and DoP John Peter combining echoes of Full Metal Jacket and the unembellished realist style of Middle Eastern films from Iran, Palestine and elsewhere.

There are varying intensities of performance, Holbrook’s volatile, hyper-expressive Lou contrasting with Abbass’s Mariam – her own seismic grief kept very much inside, but always evident in the Palestinian actress’s fiercely expressive stillness. Branagh gives fine support, discreetly suggesting a man in control of his professional calling yet himself also an emotional disaster zone. So does Jordanian actor Eid, recently seen in Once Upon a Time in Gaza, who brings an expertly casual vividness to his portrayal of a solid, supportive but prickly family man.

Generally understated and clear-minded about its themes, Atonement makes a few missteps – a couple of too-rhetorical music choices and the moment when Michael, at an otherwise intelligently staged veterans’ get-together, jots down, “So much wreckage” (well, quite). Otherwise, it’s an intelligent and involving film that successfully questions Hollywood cliches of war drama, while drawing knowingly on that tradition.