Atonement

Ian McEwan's book relates a story which begins in an old British country house just a few years away from World War II. He tells the readers about Briony Tallis, a 13-year-old inspired writer who is waiting anxiously to act her first play for her older brother Leon as a coming-home surprise. Their cousins, the twins (Jackson and Pierrot) and Lola, are coming from the North and are not very willing to help Briony with her production.

Parallel to that, Briony's older sister, Cecilia, is confronting the tensions in her relationship with Robbie, the son of one of the Tallis family servants. The Tallis father paid for Robbie's studies in Cambridge and both she and Robbie studied there together but saw nothing of each other. It is obvious that they feel something really strong for each other but their difficulty in handling that makes them frequently annoyed with each other.
Briony as the promising writer she already is, is full of curiosity and imagination, which will inevitably create a household catastrophe.
With a lot of specific detalis, not only about the scenario but the characters mind, the book from the first instant calls the readers attention to what is yet to come and so does the movie.

The movie, directed by Joe Wright stars Saoirse Ronan as young Briony and Romola Garai as the 18-year-old Briony, Keira Knightley as Cecilia and James McAvoy as Robbie. And it is not a bad adaptation, it has a wonderful photography and great actors. Also, as written in The New York Times review, '“Atonement” fails to be anything more than a decorous, heavily decorated and ultimately superficial reading of the book on which it is based.'

The story is about making a terrible mistake and the guilt that follows and how this actions can ruin lives forever. And Briony's effort to make atonement.