Set in 1930s England, Atonement follows thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis, whose misinterpretation and jealousy lead her to falsely accuse her sister Cecilia's lover, Robbie Turner, of a crime he did not commit. The accusation tears the young lovers apart, sending Robbie to prison and later to the battlefields of World War II. Decades later, an older Briony, now a novelist, attempts to atone for her childhood lie through the only means available to her — her writing.
Briony writes a novel in which the lovers she destroyed get to live. The closing minutes inform us that what we just watched was that novel. Joe Wright doesn’t cheat: the lie is the whole point of telling the truth.
Wright's sweep across the beach at Dunkirk turns one continuous shot into an overwhelming panorama of despair.
Joe Wright lets the elderly Briony confess that the film we have been watching is her novel — and the ending is a lie she wrote because the truth was unbearable.
