Product Description

From the award-winning director of Pride and Prejudice comes a stunning critically acclaimed epic story of love. When a young girl catches her sister in a passionate embrace with a childhood friend her jealousy drives her to tell a lie that will irrevocably change the course of all their lives forever. Academy Award® nominee Keira Knightley and James McAvoy lead an all-star cast in the film critics are hailing "the year's best picture" (Thelma Adams US Weekly).System Requirements:Running Time: 123 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/LOVE & ROMANCE Rating: R UPC: 025193328526 Manufacturer No: 61033285

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44 in DVD
• Brand: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAIN.
• Released on: 2008-03-18
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 130 minutes

Amazon.com
Director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice) gives Ian McEwan's bestselling novel a sumptuous treatment for the screen that should come to be regarded as one of the defining films of the epic romantic drama. Indeed, everything about this film stems from those three words: there is little here that is not epic, romantic, and dramatic, and Atonement is a film that masterfully expresses the overarching sense of adventure and emotion that such stories are meant to convey. In this instance, the story centers around the love story of highborn Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) and housekeeper's son Robbie Turner (James McAvoy, in a star-making turn), in England shortly before World War II. Despite their class differences, they are powerfully attracted to each other, and just as their relationship begins Robbie is tragically forced away due to false accusations from Cecilia's younger sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan). She has a crush on Robbie, too, and after reading a private letter he sent to Cecilia, and then witnessing the first expression of their mutual love but mistaking it for mistreatment, her resentment grows until it leads to her telling the lie that will send Robbie away. Soon World War II breaks out; Robbie enlists and is posted to France, Cecilia is a nurse in London, and Briony, now age 18 and aware of what she has done, tries to atone for her actions--but none of them will be able to get back what they have lost. Knightley and McAvoy are perfectly cast as the young star crossed lovers, and the young Ronan is particularly impressive, but it's clear that the real star of this film is the director. Wright allows Atonement to revel in every moment of its story and each scene is compelling in its own way, but that now famous extended shot with Robbie on the beach at Dunkirk--filmed in one take and sure to be considered one of the great long tracking shots in film history--is the most memorable moment in this remarkable film. Atonement is an excellent example of what can happen when a great book meets great filmmaking. This is one that is not to be missed. --Daniel Vancini

Stills from Atonement (click for larger image).

Customer Reviews

Great service! Great product! Great Success!
I highly encourage this movie. It offers much more than I had anticipated. The story-line is rock solid while the acting is perfect! I really enjoyed the setting, the mood, and the ending! It is a different ending than most expect, but it is different. I am tired of the same old cliche love stories that have no originality. I was very satisfied with this movie.

What Atonement???
The Oscar nominations are getting worse and worse every year. Who are these people. This is an awful movie from beginning to end. It is a shame because the actors are superb in their field. The story may have been great as a book but the movie version is disgusting. Do expect ANY of the romantic scenes they made into trailors for this movie. It is all twisted. I can't recommend this movie to anyone!

False Atonement
The destruction caused by a single false accusation is the theme of the 2007 film "Atonement," starring James McAvoy and Keira Knightley, based on the novel by Ian McEwan. A family tragedy, occurring one summer night at an English country estate, spirals into the horrors of World War II, almost as if the private debacle leads to the international conflagration. Of course it does not, but the film clarifies the message that personal sins have resounding consequences from which the innocent suffer.

The lie which separates young lovers Robbie (McAvoy) and Cecilia (Knightley) is precipitated by a variety of circumstances which could have been prevented. For one thing, the youngsters of the household, those visiting and those in residence, seemingly receive little supervision. If someone had been watching the twins, it would not have been so easy for them to run away. And why were two young girls like Briony and Lola permitted to run through the woods alone in the dark? Something terrible was bound to happen.

Of course, if Robbie and Cecilia had chosen to fornicate in a pantry or a closet rather than right there in the library, especially in a house full of guests and children and servants, much harm would have been avoided. Briony's thirteen year old, morbid imagination is blamed for making so much of it. No doubt there are plenty of old married women who would be startled if they happened upon two people copulating in the book shelves. Glimpsing Lola being raped in the woods a few hours later was too much for the sensitive and sheltered girl, who then vents her turmoil upon poor Robbie.

In fact, Briony is made into quite the villainess although she is only a child, a bright child with an overactive imagination, left to her own devices. We hear constantly about "Catholic guilt;" perhaps Protestant guilt is far worse. If Briony had been able receive some spiritual direction from a confessor, hopefully she would have been told at some point to clear Robbie's name, freeing herself from the consuming self-reproach. As she matures it becomes clearer to her that she had borne false witness, that she had misunderstood what she had seen in the woods. The deep implications of her lie sink into her soul so that she is prevented from blossoming as a woman, and remains even into old age an adolescent with a deer-in-the-headlights expression. She embraces the vocation of nursing out of guilt rather than from the desire to heal. She deprives herself of love, existing in the dream of Robbie and Cecilia's thwarted romance. She is as much a victim of the crime as they are.

Subtly crafted, with every scene a work of art, the film flows from the chintz-draped manor house with its lush gardens to the blistering shores of Dunkirk. Keira Knightley must be the most emaciated actress who ever lived, but her diction is lovely and dark eyes, expressive. What a talented actor James McAvoy is, although I usually find him homely; in "Atonement" he is quite handsome. The costumes are perfection; the musical score hauntingly punctuated with the clicking of Briony's typewriter. Or is it Robbie's typewriter? The lewd note which he mistakenly sends to Cecila is a major disaster, especially in the wrong hands. Private pecadilloes and weaknesses are pebbles precipitating an avalanche in which all is lost.