Atonement is a new British movie, made by Working Title Films, set during World War II, starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. It is released in Britain and Ireland on 14th September and North America on 7th December. It is based on the novel by Sir Ian McEwan and is directed by Joe Wright (director of Pride & Prejudice).
The official Atonement website - http://www.atonementthemovie.co.uk/
In the summer of 1935 Briony Tallis, a 13-year-old from a well-to-do English family, is a budding writer. She hopes to have her cousins Lola and the twins Jackson and Pierrot enact a play of her devising during a family get-together, but the cast is hopeless. During the day, however, she spies a servant's son, Robbie Turner, apparently making her older sister Cecilia strip, and comes upon an obscene love letter he has written her. Briony's fertile imagination conjures all sorts of awful things, and when her cousin Lola is raped, our heroine is pretty sure she saw Robbie do it. He is sent to prison, much over Cecilia's protests, gets out early to fight in France where he is caught up in the confusion of the retreat at Dunkirk, and over the years matters sort out more or less between the estranged family members.
Atonement is the film adaptation of the best-selling war-time novel by Booker Prize-winning British author, Ian McEwan.
The book has been adapted for the screen by renowned playwright Christopher Hampton who has previously worked on films including 'The Quiet American' and 'Dangerous Liaisons'.
It is directed by Joe Wright (pictured on set), who was also behind the 2005 big-screen version of Pride and Prejudice with Matthew MacFadyen and Keira Knightley.
The film stars Knightley alongside James McAvoy, who won acclaim for his role as a Scottish doctor in British movie 'The Last King of Scotland'...
... as well as grandes dames of British acting Brenda Blethyn and Vanessa Redgrave (pictured).
Atonement has been shot in the UK, in Shropshire, London, Grimsby and the Teeside town of Redcar which becomes Dunkirk in 1940.
The story follows its protagonists through the tumultuous events of the Second World War, their lives profoundly altered by events several years earlier
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 has recently graduated from Cambridge along with Cecilia.
Robbie and Cecilia become victims of the younger girl's scheming imagination, and Briony commits a dreadful crime, the guilt for which will colour her entire life...
The novel 'Atonement' has recently been dogged by controversy: McEwan was accused of plagiarising a little known autobiography called 'No Time for Romance' whose author, herself a novelist, died in 2006.
McEwan responded that he had "openly acknowledged my debt to her in the author's note at the end of Atonement, and ever since on public platforms, where questions about research are almost as frequent as 'where do you get your ideas from?'"
Cast
James McAvoy...Robbie Turner
Keira Knightley...Cecilia
Saoirse Ronan...Briony at 13
Romola Garai...Briony at 18
Vanessa Redgrave....Older Briony
Brenda Blethyn....Grace Turner
Harriet Walter....Emily Tallis
Juno Temple.....Lola
Stephen Bush
telegraph.co.uk
The official Atonement website - http://www.atonementthemovie.co.uk/
In the summer of 1935 Briony Tallis, a 13-year-old from a well-to-do English family, is a budding writer. She hopes to have her cousins Lola and the twins Jackson and Pierrot enact a play of her devising during a family get-together, but the cast is hopeless. During the day, however, she spies a servant's son, Robbie Turner, apparently making her older sister Cecilia strip, and comes upon an obscene love letter he has written her. Briony's fertile imagination conjures all sorts of awful things, and when her cousin Lola is raped, our heroine is pretty sure she saw Robbie do it. He is sent to prison, much over Cecilia's protests, gets out early to fight in France where he is caught up in the confusion of the retreat at Dunkirk, and over the years matters sort out more or less between the estranged family members.
Atonement is the film adaptation of the best-selling war-time novel by Booker Prize-winning British author, Ian McEwan.
The book has been adapted for the screen by renowned playwright Christopher Hampton who has previously worked on films including 'The Quiet American' and 'Dangerous Liaisons'.
It is directed by Joe Wright (pictured on set), who was also behind the 2005 big-screen version of Pride and Prejudice with Matthew MacFadyen and Keira Knightley.
The film stars Knightley alongside James McAvoy, who won acclaim for his role as a Scottish doctor in British movie 'The Last King of Scotland'...
... as well as grandes dames of British acting Brenda Blethyn and Vanessa Redgrave (pictured).
Atonement has been shot in the UK, in Shropshire, London, Grimsby and the Teeside town of Redcar which becomes Dunkirk in 1940.
The story follows its protagonists through the tumultuous events of the Second World War, their lives profoundly altered by events several years earlier
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 has recently graduated from Cambridge along with Cecilia.
Robbie and Cecilia become victims of the younger girl's scheming imagination, and Briony commits a dreadful crime, the guilt for which will colour her entire life...
The novel 'Atonement' has recently been dogged by controversy: McEwan was accused of plagiarising a little known autobiography called 'No Time for Romance' whose author, herself a novelist, died in 2006.
McEwan responded that he had "openly acknowledged my debt to her in the author's note at the end of Atonement, and ever since on public platforms, where questions about research are almost as frequent as 'where do you get your ideas from?'"
Cast
James McAvoy...Robbie Turner
Keira Knightley...Cecilia
Saoirse Ronan...Briony at 13
Romola Garai...Briony at 18
Vanessa Redgrave....Older Briony
Brenda Blethyn....Grace Turner
Harriet Walter....Emily Tallis
Juno Temple.....Lola
Stephen Bush
telegraph.co.uk