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Atomised, the 2000 cult novel by French author Michel Houellebecq, was never an obvious candidate for transfer to screen. All the more startling, then, that director Oskar Roehler's film version does so well with the story of two half brothers Michael (Christian Ulmen) and Bruno (Moritz Bleibtreu) - the former an introverted scientist, the latter a school teacher and sexual obsessive - who begin dysfunctional love affairs. This is a lyrical, compelling movie that rages against the emptiness of modern living.
The film's opening scenes capture the two brothers at junctures in their ordinary, unsatisfying lives. When molecular scientist Michael encounters childhood sweetheart Annabelle (Franka Potente), and literature teacher Bruno finds solace in the bed of swinger Christiane (Martina Gedeck) it seems as though happiness could at last be theirs. But their fractured past - both, as boys, were dumped on grandparents by their hippy-chick mother Jane (Nina Hoss) - won't be defeated so easily, and soon enough the two men's neuroses start to kill the relationships they hold dearest.
"MOVES BETWEEN BLEAK AND BLEAKER"
Roehler has packed his movie full of the millennial angst that marked out Houellebecq's novel, while artfully streamlining the narrative to ensure the pace doesn't drift. Still, expect a demanding watch. Atomised moves between bleak and bleaker, and even as misfortune rains down on Michael and Bruno we're given little cause to admire them. It's down to Ulmen and Bleibtreu, then, to inject humanity into this frosty story, and they do so with performances by turns understated and impassioned. It makes for a combination that is subtly electrifying.
