by Christianna Garrett-Martin

Created on: February 10, 2009   Last Updated: May 20, 2009

- ATONEMENT -

Directed by Joe Wright and based on a critically acclaimed novel of the same name, by Ian McEwan. Atonement was released in 2007. Starring: James McAvoy, Keira Knightly, Saoirse Ronan and Vanessa Redgrave. - Genre: Drama/Romance/War - BBFC Rating: 15 - Running Time: 123 Minutes -

Music by Dario Marianelli. Cinematography Seamus McGarvey.

Atonement is a story of an upper class family who live in a huge country mansion. It is set initially in 1935 pre war Britain and it is a very interesting and complex film. Basically it is the tale of the relationship of two sisters and a local man. A love triangle of sorts. Bryony is thirteen, and a very Precocious, sensitive, creative and highly strung individual. Her older sister Cecilia is a vivacious, 20 something, and is a very beautiful creature indeed. Bryony harbours a fascination with her sister and a jealousy of the attention that centres on her. There is a man at the heart of this tale,

Robbie, the housekeeper's son whose studies have been financed by Cecilia's father and whom Cecilia is very much in love with. She keeps it hidden though, because, as she says to Bryony, when asked by her sister, why she didn't really talk to him any more; Cecilia's reply was, "Because we move in different circles". So here the class divide was evidently separating the love that they felt for one another.

Whilst collecting flowers in the grounds a vase is broken and Cecilia strips off and plunges in to the fountain water to retrieve the broken piece, as she surfaces, Robbie is filled with desire at witnessing her body through her wet clothes. Unable to put his passion into words, Robbie goes home and composes a note to her. He composes two actually, one is crude and sexual where he has written down what he what like to do to her in his fantasies, and he uses a very crude word. The other is more formal and is the correct one which he means to send. He rushes down to the meadow and sees Bryony running wildly through the grass and he asks her to deliver his note to Cecilia before he arrives for dinner at the big house later that evening. On reaching home, to his horror, he realises that he has included the wrong note in the letter.

Now, Bryony has a huge crush on Robbie, an intense infatuation and at thirteen can't identify just what these feelings mean. One day Bryony throws herself into the lake to see if Robbie will save her, which of course he does, and like some great romantic scene from a movie Bryony says,

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