Atonement (15)

Joe Wright directs this adaptation of the novel by Ian McEwan starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) sees her older sister Cecilia (Knightley) 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 (James McAvoy), 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 have been changed forever. Robbie and Cecilia have crossed a boundary they had never before dared to approach and have become victims of the younger girl’s scheming imagination – and Briony has committed a dreadful crime, the guilt for which will colour her entire life. Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave co-star as Briony as she grows older.