Atonement (2007 film)

2007 film by Joe Wright

Atonement is a 2007 romantic war drama film directed by Joe Wright and starring James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, and Vanessa Redgrave. It is based on the 2001 novel of the same name by Ian McEwan. The film chronicles a crime and its consequences over the course of six decades, beginning in the 1930s. It was produced for StudioCanal and filmed in England. Distributed in most of the world by Universal Studios, it was released theatrically in the United Kingdom on 7 September 2007 and in North America on 7 December 2007. Atonement opened both the 2007 Vancouver International Film Festival and the 64th Venice International Film Festival, making Wright, at age 35, the youngest director ever to open the Venice event. The film was a commercial success and earned a worldwide gross of approximately $129 million against a budget of $30 million. Critics praised its acting, emotional depth, Wright's direction, Dario Marianelli's score, the cinematography, editing, visuals and the film's incorporation of real life events. Among numerous accolades, Atonement was nominated in seven categories at the 80th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (for Ronan), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score, which it won; and also garnered fourteen nominations at the 61st British Academy Film Awards, winning both Best Film and Production Design; and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama.

In 1935 England, 13 year old Briony Tallis, the youngest daughter of the wealthy Tallis family spies on her older sister, Cecilia, and the housekeeper's son, Robbie Turner (with whom Briony is infatuated), from her bedroom window. During Cecilia's and Robbie's argument by the garden fountain, Robbie accidentally breaks a vase and yells at Cecilia to stay where she is to avoid cutting her feet. Still angered, Cecilia strips off her outer clothing and climbs into the fountain to retrieve one of the glass pieces. Briony observes from the window and misinterprets the relationship between Cecilia and Robbie. Robbie drafts a note to Cecilia to apologise for the incident. In one draft, he pens his unfiltered feelings of attraction for her in explicit language. Although he never intends for anyone to see this version of the note, he mistakenly places it (instead of the second more formal note he drafts) in an envelope which he asks Briony to deliver to Cecilia. Briony reads the letter before giving it to her sister. Later, she describes the note to her 15 year old cousin, Lola, who calls Robbie a "sex maniac". Paul Marshall, a visiting friend of Briony's older brother Leon, introduces himself to the visiting cousins and appears to be attracted to Lola. Before dinner, Robbie and Cecilia are alone in the library, at which time he apologises for the obscene letter, but she confesses her love for him. They make love against the wall in the library as Briony walks in unseen, sees them, and mistakenly thinks her sister is being raped. During dinner, Lola's twin brothers go missing, and the household organises into search parties. While participating in the search, Briony comes across Lola being raped by a man who flees. Despite never seeing the man clearly, Briony is convinced that it was Robbie; a confused Lola who did not see his face does not dissent. Later, Robbie — who finds the twins unharmed — returns to the house. He is arrested despite Cecilia's pleas of his innocence. Lola and Briony's testimony, along with her turning over the explicit letter, convinces everyone but Cecilia of his guilt. Four years later, during the Second World War, Robbie is released from prison on the condition that he joins the army and fights in the Battle of France. Separated from his unit, he makes his way on foot to Dunkirk. He thinks back to six months earlier when he met Cecilia, now a nurse. Briony, now 18, joined Cecilia's old nursing unit at St Thomas' Hospital in London rather than go to the University of Cambridge. She writes to her sister, but Cecilia cannot forgive her for her part in Robbie's arrest and conviction. Robbie, who is gravely ill from an infected wound and hallucinating, arrives at the beaches of Dunkirk, where he awaits evacuation. Later, Briony, who regrets implicating Robbie, learns that Paul Marshall is about to marry Lola. As Briony attends the wedding, it sinks in that Paul assaulted Lola during the search for the twins years ago. Briony visits Cecilia to apologise and suggests correcting her testimony, to which Cecilia says she would be an "unreliable witness". Briony is surprised to find Robbie there living with her sister while in London on leave. Briony apologises for her deceit, but Robbie is enraged that she has not accepted responsibility for her actions. Cecilia calms him down, and Robbie instructs Briony how to set the record straight and get his conviction overturned. Briony agrees. Cecilia adds that Briony include what she remembers of Danny Hardman, but Briony points out that Paul Marshall was the rapist and Cecilia adds he has just married Lola and now Lola will not be able to testify against her husband. Decades later, when Briony is an elderly and successful novelist, she gives an interview about her latest and last book, an autobiographical novel titled Atonement, and explains that she is dying from vascular dementia. The audience learns that the portion of the book where Robbie and Cecilia are living together and Briony attempts to apologise to them is fictitious. The reality is that she could never atone for her mistake, and Cecilia and Robbie never reunited; Robbie died of septicaemia from his infected wound at Dunkirk, and Cecilia drowned months later during an underground flood due to the Balham tube station bombing during the Blitz. Briony admits that she wrote her novel with its fictitious ending to give the two, in fiction, the happiness they never had because she was responsible for mistakenly identifying Robbie as Lola's rapist. The last scene shows an imagined Cecilia and Robbie happily staying together in the house by the sea which they had intended to visit once they were reunited.

James McAvoy as Robbie Turner, the son of the Tallis family housekeeper with a Cambridge education courtesy of his mother's employer. Keira Knightley as Cecilia Tallis, the elder of the two Tallis sisters. Saoirse Ronan as Briony, aged 13, an aspiring novelist. Romola Garai as Briony Tallis, aged 18, the younger Tallis sister and a nurse in training. Vanessa Redgrave as older Briony, now a successful novelist. Brenda Blethyn as Grace Turner, Robbie's mother and the Tallis family housekeeper. Juno Temple as Lola Quincey, the visiting 15 year old cousin of the Tallis siblings. Benedict Cumberbatch as Paul Marshall, Leon Tallis's visiting friend. Patrick Kennedy as Leon Tallis, the eldest of the Tallis siblings. Harriet Walter as Emily Tallis, the matriarch of the family. Peter Wight as Police Inspector. Daniel Mays as Tommy Nettle, one of Robbie's brothers in arms. Nonso Anozie as Frank Mace, another fellow soldier. Gina McKee as Sister Drummond. Jérémie Renier as Luc Cornet, a fatally wounded and brain damaged French soldier whom the 18 year old Briony comforts on his deathbed. Michelle Duncan as Fiona Maguire, Briony's nursing friend at St Thomas' Hospital. Alfie Allen as Danny Hardman, a worker on the Tallis estate. In addition, film director and playwright Anthony Minghella briefly appears as the television interviewer in the final scene. Minghella died six months after the film was released, aged 54, following cancer surgery.

Director Joe Wright asked executive producers, Debra Hayward, Liza Chasin, and co producer Jane Frazer to collaborate a second time, after working on Pride and Prejudice in 2005. He also sought out production designer Sarah Greenwood, editor Paul Tothill, costume designer Jacqueline Durran, and composer Dario Marianelli, for the film—all of whom previously worked together with Wright. In an interview, Wright states, "It's important for me to work with the same people. It makes me feel safe, and we kind of understand each other." The screenplay was adapted from Ian McEwan's 2001 novel by Christopher Hampton. After reading McEwan's book, screenwriter Christopher Hampton, who had previously undertaken many adaptations, was inspired to adapt it into a script for a feature film. When Wright took over the project as director, he decided he wanted a different approach, and Hampton re wrote much of his original script to Wright's suggestion. The first draft – written with director Richard Eyre in mind – took what Hampton called a more "conventional, literary approach", with a linear structure, and a voiceover and the epilogue of the older Briony being woven in throughout the entire film instead of only at the end. Wright felt that the original approach owed more to contemporary filmmaking than historical filmmaking, while the second script was closer to the book. The war scenes, as well as many others scenes, were filmed on location. Set decorator Katie Spencer and production designer Sarah Greenwood both examined archives from Country Life to find suitable locations for the interior and exterior scenes. Referencing her character's unlikeability, Wright commended on Knightley's bravery in tackling this type of role without any fear of how the audience will receive this characterisation, stating "It's a character that's not always likeable and I think so many young actors these days are terrified of being disliked at any given moment in case the audience doesn't come and pay their box office money to see them again. Keira is not afraid of that. She puts her craft first." In preparation for her role, Knightley watched films from the 1930s and 1940s, such as Brief Encounter and In Which We Serve, to study the "naturalism" of the performance that Wright wanted in Atonement. James McAvoy, despite turning down previous offers to work with Wright, nonetheless remained the director's first choice. Producers met several actors for the role of Robbie, but McAvoy was the only one who was offered the part. He fit Wright's bid for someone who "had the acting ability to take the audience with him on his personal and physical journey." McAvoy describes Robbie as one of the most difficult characters he has ever played, "because he's very straight ahead." One of the most important qualities that particularly resonated with Wright was "McAvoy's own working class roots," After inviting Ronan to come to London to read for the part, Wright was not only surprised by her Irish accent, but immediately recognised her unique acting ability. Abbie Cornish was pegged for the role of 18 year old Briony, but had to back out due to scheduling conflicts with Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Romola Garai was cast instead, and was obliged to adapt her performance's physicality to fit the appearance that had already been decided upon for Ronan and Redgrave. Garai spent much time with Ronan, and watched footage of her to approximate the way the younger actress moved. and committed herself to the role after just one meeting with Wright. Redgrave, Ronan and Garai worked together with a voice coach to keep the character's timbre in a familiar range throughout the film. Due to restrictions in the filming schedule, the production only had two full days to film all the war scenes set on Dunkirk beach, and lacked the budget to fund the 1000+ extras needed to shoot these scenes. Joe Wright and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey were forced to reduce the shooting to a 5 1/2 minute long take following James McAvoy's character as he moved a quarter of a mile along the beach. The first of the two days, and part of the second day, were dedicated to blocking and rehearsing the sequence until the sun was in the correct position in the afternoon ready to shoot. The shot took three complete takes, the fourth being abandoned mid flow due to the lighting becoming too bad for shooting. They ended up using the third take. The sequence was accomplished by Steadicam operator Peter Robertson moving between using a tracking vehicle, to being on foot, to using a rickshaw via a ramp and then back to on foot.

Atonement opened at the 2007 Venice International Film Festival, making Wright—at the age of 35—the youngest director ever to be so honoured. The film also opened at the 2007 Vancouver International Film Festival. Atonement was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 7 September 2007, and in North America on 7 December 2007, along with a worldwide theatrical distribution which was managed by Universal Pictures, with minor releases through other divisions on 7 September 2007.

Atonement was released on DVD in the United States on 3 January 2008, which was followed by a release in Blu ray edition on 13 March 2012. In the UK, the film was released on DVD on 4 February 2008, on Amazon (in the UK), and on Blu ray on 27 May 2008.

Atonement grossed a cumulative $131,016,624 worldwide and $784,145 in the US on its opening weekend—9 December 2007. The estimated budget for the film was $30,000,000. The film's total gross revenue is $23,934,714 (worldwide) and $50,927,067 in the US.