The world premiere of Joe Wright's Atonement was held on the opening day of the 2007 Venice Film Festival. The film, based on the novel of the same name by Ian McEwan, raised $ 130 million at the box office, became the winner of the British Academy and Golden Globe awards in the nomination "Best Film" and the Academy Award in the nomination "Best Soundtrack".
England, 1935 The wealthy Tallis family spends the summer on a country estate. The youngest daughter, thirteen-year-old Brioni, impressionable and purposeful, dreams of a writing career and plans to stage her first play in the family circle. Adults treat her indulgently, cousins do not take it seriously.
The eldest, Cecilia, languishes from the summer heat and first love. With Robbie Turner, the son of a servant, she has a common childhood, study at Cambridge and mutual attraction. Brioni sees what is happening between them, is jealous and because of his childhood egoism believes that they are betraying her. Cecilia and Robbie are careless, Briony is curious and self-confident. When their cousin becomes the victim of an attack, Briony's resentment and imagination turn into a breeding ground for the wrong conclusions, and the girl blames Robbie.
Cecilia leaves her parents' house, breaks off relations with her family, and with the outbreak of war she becomes a sister of mercy in a military hospital. The war frees Robbie from prison, and he manages to see Cecilia before being sent to the front, to France. By this time, Briony is growing up, realizing her guilt, and the inevitable remorse forces her to look for her sister and Robbie in the hope of forgiveness. She punishes herself with hard work in the hospital, writes her first novel and letters to her sister, but Cecilia refuses to meet her.
Cecilia lives on the hope of Robbie's return, Briony the hope of redemption, Robbie is trying to return to England to fulfill the promise made to her beloved.
"Atonement" is a story about passion and jealousy, about class prejudices, the consequences of curiosity and hasty decisions. About how dangerous it can be ignorance and unwillingness to distinguish between reality and fiction, book romanticism and the tragedy of real human life.
And only in the final, the audience learns that the story told only at the very beginning was true. They learn that the girl who made the fatal mistake was never able to find atonement. The war took her last chance, and Cecilia and Robbie - life. Therefore, on the verge of her own death, Briony, who became, as she dreamed of, a writer, tried to bring back her sister and her beloved to life on the pages of the book in order to give a meeting and happiness, which deprived them of reality.
