Atonement (film)
From AwardAnnals
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| Director(s) | Joe Wright |
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| Distributor | Universal Pictures |
| Honors | |
| In England in 1935, on the hottest day of the year, in the looming shadow of World War II, Briony Tallis and her family live a life of wealth and privilege in their enormous Victorian Gothic Mansion. As the family gathers for the weekend the combination of the oppressive heat and long suppressed emotions coming to the surface create an ominous sense of threat and danger.
Briony, a fledgling writer, is a girl with a vivid imagination. Through a series of catastrophic misunderstandings she accuses Robbie Turner, the housekeeper’s son and lover of her sister Cecilia, of a crime he did not commit. This accusation destroys Robbie and Cecilia’s new found love and dramatically alters the course of all their lives. | |
The film opens in England in 1935, on the hottest day of the year. In the looming shadow of World War II Briony Tallis and her family live a life of wealth and privilege in their enormous Victorian Gothic Mansion.
As the family gathers for the weekend the combination of the oppressive heat and long suppressed emotions coming to the surface create an ominous sense of threat and danger.
Briony, a fledgling writer, is a girl with a vivid imagination. Through a series of catastrophic misunderstandings she accuses Robbie Turner, the housekeeper’s son and lover of her sister Cecilia, of a crime he did not commit.
This accusation destroys Robbie and Cecilia’s new found love and dramatically alters the course of all their lives.
Related works
Atonement: A Novel
- 2002 LATimes–Fiction winner
- 2002 NBCC–Fiction winner
- 2001 Booker shortlist
- 2001 JT Black-Fiction shortlist
- 2001 Whitbread-Novel shortlist
- Score: 38.52
On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her older sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper’s son Robbie Turner, a childhood friend who, along with Briony’s sister, has recently graduated from Cambridge.
By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed forever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had never before dared to approach and will have become victims of the younger girl’s scheming imagination. And Briony will have committed a dreadful crime, the guilt for which will color her entire life.
Atonement is Ian McEwan’s finest achievement. Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class, the novel is at its center a profound–and profoundly moving–exploration of shame and forgiveness and the difficulty of absolution.
Atonement: Music from the Motion Picture
The filmmakers of Pride and Prejudice (director Joe Wright) reunite for Atonement, based on the award-winning, best-selling 2002 novel, a classic British romance that spans several decades. The Decca soundtrack will be released on December 4 and features original music by Academy Award® nominee Dario Marianelli, (Pride and Prejudice) with piano solos performed by Decca artist Jean Yves-Thibaudet.
