The scene is set in the early twentieth century suburban Britain with smartly tailored suits, flowing dresses, stiff necks, high noses and filtered cigarettes. The Post-World War I and Pre-World War II political turmoil is shown having its effect on life in general. So one can only imagine what pleasant drift from reality the first few minutes of the film hold. Typewriter keys tap as everyday happenings of those times are portrayed in the foreground. The acoustic effects along with that of the typewriter keys are expertly composed as random tapping on metal and the already mentioned typewriter sound give a melodious effect mixed with piano.

As most other novel based flicks, "Atonement" falls short of doing justice to the original book by Ian Mc Ewan. It is just heavily laden with clichéd effects so often used in movies depicting a semi classical England. It is unlike Joe Wright’s adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” (which was to the point and quite effective in its story telling) or the original novel (which is immediately intriguing). The beginning is the average rich-girl-poor-boy love story, with James McAvoy (as Robbie) playing Keira Knightley’s (as Cecilia Tallis) servant. Cecilia’s younger sister, Briony’s (played by Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave as she grows older with the film’s progress) role of a quickly maturing young lady brings about the main twist in this story.

As the movie progresses, this little love story turns into a full scaled wartime political drama and completely loses track of what the novelist intended it to be. It suddenly focuses on the collective lives of the characters rather than giving them individual attention as the novel does. Even the war is not given much intellectual focus; it is treated with cheap scenes of violence and gore, while the ones that are not cheap do not hit the viewer aesthetically, as opposed to emotionally. In doing so, it fails to focus the viewer’s attention on the actual theme of the novel, which lies in its very name, atonement. I felt that there was a whole lot left to be desired.

All in all, the movie is only worth watching to admire the acting skills shown by both the lead characters, saying anything more would give away too much of the film, but it is recommended that if the reader has not read the novel yet, let it wait till after you have watched the movie.