Adapting Unsettling Endings and Harlequinization: Neil LaBute’s Possession and Joe Wright’s Atonement

Résumé En

A.S. Byatt's Possession (1990) and Ian McEwan's Atonement (2001) share an unusual feature: the last pages of each novel form a sort of epilogue or postscript which do not confirm, underline nor develop the resolution reached by the diegesis as is traditionally the case, but, on the contrary, deliberately unsettle the conclusions previously reached. This chapter considers how and to what extent these unsettling pages are translated to the screen in Neil LaBute's Possession (2002) and Joe Wright's Atonement (2007), knowing that a regular feature of screen adaptations is to tend to 'harlequinize' the source text (Kaplan). This discussion examines the articulation between the resolution and the final shots and looks for formal signs of the subversion of epilogues considering that classical films contain the same two-stage conclusion as traditional novels with the last shots confirming the resolution achieved (Bordwell).