Podcast 25: Atonement

September 17, 2021 Jon S Movies, Podcasting 0 Comments
Atonement

Recorded on 7/8/2021

In this episode we review the movie Atonement (2007) starring James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave. WARNING: There will be SPOILERS.

The 3 Guys Podcast

Notes From The Show

  • Quick Synopsis

  • Released: September 7, 2007 (United Kingdom), December 7, 2007 (USA), 9 January 9, 2008 (France)

    Director:   Joe Wright

    Screenplay:  Christopher Hampton (Based on the book “Atonement” by Ian McEwan)

    Stars:   James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, Vanessa Redgrave

    Plot:      Thirteen-year-old fledgling writer Briony Tallis changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister’s lover of a crime he did not commit.

    How did this movie do:
    Budget: $23 million
    Box office: $131 million

  • Awards

    • Saoirse Ronan received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as Briony Tallis. She was only thirteen at the time. Saoirse Ronan was only twelve-years-old when this production began shooting.

    • The only Best Picture Oscar nominee that year to not be nominated for Best Director.

    • The only Best Picture Oscar nominee that year to be also nominated for Best Costume Design.

    • The only movie that year to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, but not at the Producers Guild of America Awards.

    • The film has received numerous awards and nominations, including seven Golden Globe nominations, more than any other film nominated at the 65th Golden Globe Awards, and winning two of the nominated Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture Drama. The film also received seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture.

  • Casting

    • Keira Knightley is three years younger than Romola Garai, but played her older sister.

    • Romola Garai shot her scenes in four days.

    • The actress that played Robbie’s mother also played Keira Knightley’s mother in Pride & Prejudice (2005): Brenda Blethyn.

    • Before this movie was even released, Saoirse Ronan had already been cast in The Lovely Bones (2009) based solely on a compelling audition DVD she’d sent Writer, Producer, and Director Peter Jackson.

    • The cast includes two Oscar winners: Vanessa Redgrave and Anthony Minghella; and four Oscar nominees: Keira Knightley, Brenda Blethyn, Saoirse Ronan, and Benedict Cumberbatch.

    • Abbie Cornish was considered for the role of Briony Tallis, aged 18, but backed out due to scheduling conflicts with Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007).

    • Emily Watson and Dame Kristin Scott Thomas were approached to play Emily Tallis.

  • Trivia

    • James McAvoy considered the script the best he had ever read.

    • Shooting the five-minute Dunkirk beach scene was arguably the toughest portion of shooting. The shooting schedule dictated that the scene must be completed in two days, because the crew has limited time with the one thousand extras. However, the location scouts report indicated the lighting quality at the beach was not good enough until the afternoon of the second day. This forced Director Joe Wright to change his shooting strategy into shooting with one camera. The scene was rehearsed on the first day and on the morning of the second day. The scene required five takes, and the third take was used in this movie. On shooting, Steadicam Operator Peter Robertson shot the scene by riding on a small tracking vehicle, walking off to a bandstand after rounding a boat, moved to a ramp, stepped onto a rickshaw, finally dismounting and moving past the pier into a bar.

    • Only eight U.K. military ambulances from World War II remain, and this movie made use of them all.

    • Director Joe Wright had wanted Keira Knightley to play the role of Briony in her late teens, but Knightley immediately liked the character of Cecilia, and also wanted to get away from playing girls on the brink of womanhood and play a more mature character for once.

    • In the DVD commentary, Director Joe Wright reveals a lucky fluke that got caught on camera during the scene just before Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) discovers the school girls’ massacre. At the point where he removes his helmet, the weather was cloudy. As he looks up the sky, the sun started shining, and then got cloudy again the moment he put his head down.

    • According to a BBC article, in order to achieve one aspect of this movie’s extraordinary visual style, Christian Dior stockings were stretched over the camera lens to achieve a soft focus.

    • The small English town of Redcar stood in for the French city of Dunkirk, and the Dunkirk set built there was the most expensive one in this movie, costing an estimated one million pounds sterling.

    • Briony’s appearance next to the stained glass window featuring Saint Matilda may also be a reference to the Saint’s status as the patron of falsely accused people.

    • On the DVD commentary, Director Joe Wright notes that the designer of Keira Knightley’s green evening dress deliberately kept the seam down the middle of the skirt open (where it would normally be sewn shut in a dress design) for what Wright calls “easy access” in the library scene.

    • This was the opening movie of 2007’s Venice Film Festival. Director Joe Wright, at thirty-five, is the youngest director to have a movie open this prestigious event.

    • It took about three weeks to prepare the beach and sea front area, having all street furniture removed, tons of sand brought in to cover the promenade, road, and pavement, boarding up of all sea facing windows and installation of a ferris wheel, bandstand, and Army vehicles, et cetera. After nearly a week of rehearsals for the extras, actors and crew, then the actual filming, it took over two weeks to put everything back to normal, all for five minutes of screentime.

    • Director Joe Wright conducted three weeks of rehearsals beforehand, ensuring that by the time the cameras rolled, all of the actors and actresses were comfortable with their characters and the environment(s) they inhabited.

    • The movie playing in the Dunkirk theater is Port of Shadows (1938), whose plot concerns a deserting soldier trying to get out of France.

    • Local government in Redcar gave permission for a bandstand to be erected and for a shipwreck to be placed on the beach for authenticity. Several houses along the beach front were painted to suit the era. The cinema, which looked the part already, merely had an advertisement painted on the side of the building to complete the set dressing. Everything was undone after filming was complete and Redcar seafront now looks like a normal seaside town again.

    • Vanessa Redgrave noted that “Saoirse Ronan and Romola Garai and I did some improvisations on body language, among other things, for Briony. Joe – who is brilliant with actors – was able to pick and choose what he wanted focused on during the filming.”

    • Richard Eyre was originally attached to direct. However, as time passed, he became busy with another movie and stage play. He and the producers decided that, if they could find a director of whom they all approved, he would hand the project over. Joe Wright was found.

    • Since “Atonement” is a novel about novels, it shouldn’t be a surprise that it was based on another novel. Specifically, author Ian McEwan cribbed the plot in part from Henry James’ “What Maisie Knew”, another story about a child who gets involved in an adult sexual relationship that she doesn’t understand.

    • Filming of this movie’s three sections was done almost entirely in sequence.

    • In one early scene, Paul Marshall says that army conscription is inevitable “if Herr Hitler doesn’t pipe down, and he’s about as likely to do that as buy shares in Marks and Spencers”. British retail chain Marks and Spencer was co-founded by Jewish immigrant Michael Marks, and many senior-management staff have been members of his family; Jews were the ethnic group which was the prime target of Adolf Hitler’s genocidal purges.

    • The locals of Redcar, who served as extras in the Dunkirk scene, were paid fifty pounds sterling.

    • This was the last HD DVD release by Universal Pictures.

    • Post-production took nine months.

    • Included among the “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”, edited by Steven Schneider.

    • The script was written by Christopher Hampton instead of the book’s author Ian McEwan, as the latter said it would be “a little dull” to go redo the novel.

    • Director Joe Wright imagined that Cecilia would not be sexually experienced and losing her virginity to Robbie in the library scene, even though a historian informed him that given the time, place, and her background, she probably would have been sexually active during her college years.

    • Keira Knightley and Benedict Cumberbatch appeared in The Imitation Game (2014).

    • Director Joe Wright had the name Cyndie, which is his mother’s name, painted on the beached barge.

    • Joe Wright was apparently so impressed by Sir David Lean’s epic work that he screened most of it before making this movie, and then instructed Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey also to watch Lean’s oeuvre, with the hope of being able to match some of Lean’s power. Lean’s widow Sandra Lean, however, felt she “just didn’t like the movie. I thought it was terrible and badly directed. Everyone goes on about the long shot of the beach at Dunkirk, but I thought it was boring and laborious. Obviously, they were trying to get the feel of a David Lean epic, but they failed. Without David, it’s not so easy.”

    • This is the first movie of Benedict Cumberbatch set during World War II. The second was The Imitation Game (2014).
    • Saoirse Ronan starred in On Chesil Beach (2017), also adapted from a novel by Ian McEwan.

    • Director Cameo – Joe Wright: Appears during the lengthy tracking sequence on Dunkirk beach.

    • As Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) is hauled off by the Police and his mother frantically yells “liar” while running up the road, Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) peers from a staircase landing through a window decorated with figures in stained glass. The figure in the window Briony stares through is labelled “Matilda”. This is an allusion to a famous children’s poem by Hilaire Belloc entitled “Matilda”, whose first line runs, “Matilda told such dreadful lies, it made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes”. By the end of the poem, Matilda has burned to death, having called wolf one time too many.

    • In the DVD commentary, Director Joe Wright said for the assault scene, he instructed Benedict Cumberbatch to leave his underwear on. A digital butt was then added to make it appear that Cumberbatch does have his underwear down and his bare behind showing.

Released: September 7, 2007 (United Kingdom), December 7, 2007 (USA), 9 January 9, 2008 (France)

Director:   Joe Wright

Screenplay:  Christopher Hampton (Based on the book “Atonement” by Ian McEwan)

Stars:   James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, Vanessa Redgrave

Plot:  Thirteen-year-old fledgling writer Briony Tallis changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister’s lover of a crime he did not commit.

How did this movie do:
Budget: $23 million
Box office: $131 million

  • Saoirse Ronan received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as Briony Tallis. She was only thirteen at the time. Saoirse Ronan was only twelve-years-old when this production began shooting.

  • The only Best Picture Oscar nominee that year to not be nominated for Best Director.

  • The only Best Picture Oscar nominee that year to be also nominated for Best Costume Design.

  • The only movie that year to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, but not at the Producers Guild of America Awards.

  • The film has received numerous awards and nominations, including seven Golden Globe nominations, more than any other film nominated at the 65th Golden Globe Awards, and winning two of the nominated Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture Drama. The film also received seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture.
  • Keira Knightley is three years younger than Romola Garai, but played her older sister.

  • Romola Garai shot her scenes in four days.

  • The actress that played Robbie’s mother also played Keira Knightley’s mother in Pride & Prejudice (2005): Brenda Blethyn.

  • Before this movie was even released, Saoirse Ronan had already been cast in The Lovely Bones (2009) based solely on a compelling audition DVD she’d sent Writer, Producer, and Director Peter Jackson.

  • The cast includes two Oscar winners: Vanessa Redgrave and Anthony Minghella; and four Oscar nominees: Keira Knightley, Brenda Blethyn, Saoirse Ronan, and Benedict Cumberbatch.

  • Abbie Cornish was considered for the role of Briony Tallis, aged 18, but backed out due to scheduling conflicts with Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007).

  • Emily Watson and Dame Kristin Scott Thomas were approached to play Emily Tallis.
  • James McAvoy considered the script the best he had ever read.

  • Shooting the five-minute Dunkirk beach scene was arguably the toughest portion of shooting. The shooting schedule dictated that the scene must be completed in two days, because the crew has limited time with the one thousand extras. However, the location scouts report indicated the lighting quality at the beach was not good enough until the afternoon of the second day. This forced Director Joe Wright to change his shooting strategy into shooting with one camera. The scene was rehearsed on the first day and on the morning of the second day. The scene required five takes, and the third take was used in this movie. On shooting, Steadicam Operator Peter Robertson shot the scene by riding on a small tracking vehicle, walking off to a bandstand after rounding a boat, moved to a ramp, stepped onto a rickshaw, finally dismounting and moving past the pier into a bar.

  • Only eight U.K. military ambulances from World War II remain, and this movie made use of them all.

  • Director Joe Wright had wanted Keira Knightley to play the role of Briony in her late teens, but Knightley immediately liked the character of Cecilia, and also wanted to get away from playing girls on the brink of womanhood and play a more mature character for once.

  • In the DVD commentary, Director Joe Wright reveals a lucky fluke that got caught on camera during the scene just before Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) discovers the school girls’ massacre. At the point where he removes his helmet, the weather was cloudy. As he looks up the sky, the sun started shining, and then got cloudy again the moment he put his head down.

  • According to a BBC article, in order to achieve one aspect of this movie’s extraordinary visual style, Christian Dior stockings were stretched over the camera lens to achieve a soft focus.

  • The small English town of Redcar stood in for the French city of Dunkirk, and the Dunkirk set built there was the most expensive one in this movie, costing an estimated one million pounds sterling.

  • Briony’s appearance next to the stained glass window featuring Saint Matilda may also be a reference to the Saint’s status as the patron of falsely accused people.

  • On the DVD commentary, Director Joe Wright notes that the designer of Keira Knightley’s green evening dress deliberately kept the seam down the middle of the skirt open (where it would normally be sewn shut in a dress design) for what Wright calls “easy access” in the library scene.

  • This was the opening movie of 2007’s Venice Film Festival. Director Joe Wright, at thirty-five, is the youngest director to have a movie open this prestigious event.

  • It took about three weeks to prepare the beach and sea front area, having all street furniture removed, tons of sand brought in to cover the promenade, road, and pavement, boarding up of all sea facing windows and installation of a ferris wheel, bandstand, and Army vehicles, et cetera. After nearly a week of rehearsals for the extras, actors and crew, then the actual filming, it took over two weeks to put everything back to normal, all for five minutes of screentime.

  • Director Joe Wright conducted three weeks of rehearsals beforehand, ensuring that by the time the cameras rolled, all of the actors and actresses were comfortable with their characters and the environment(s) they inhabited.

  • The movie playing in the Dunkirk theater is Port of Shadows (1938), whose plot concerns a deserting soldier trying to get out of France.

  • Local government in Redcar gave permission for a bandstand to be erected and for a shipwreck to be placed on the beach for authenticity. Several houses along the beach front were painted to suit the era. The cinema, which looked the part already, merely had an advertisement painted on the side of the building to complete the set dressing. Everything was undone after filming was complete and Redcar seafront now looks like a normal seaside town again.

  • Vanessa Redgrave noted that “Saoirse Ronan and Romola Garai and I did some improvisations on body language, among other things, for Briony. Joe – who is brilliant with actors – was able to pick and choose what he wanted focused on during the filming.”

  • Richard Eyre was originally attached to direct. However, as time passed, he became busy with another movie and stage play. He and the producers decided that, if they could find a director of whom they all approved, he would hand the project over. Joe Wright was found.

  • Since “Atonement” is a novel about novels, it shouldn’t be a surprise that it was based on another novel. Specifically, author Ian McEwan cribbed the plot in part from Henry James’ “What Maisie Knew”, another story about a child who gets involved in an adult sexual relationship that she doesn’t understand.

  • Filming of this movie’s three sections was done almost entirely in sequence.

  • In one early scene, Paul Marshall says that army conscription is inevitable “if Herr Hitler doesn’t pipe down, and he’s about as likely to do that as buy shares in Marks and Spencers”. British retail chain Marks and Spencer was co-founded by Jewish immigrant Michael Marks, and many senior-management staff have been members of his family; Jews were the ethnic group which was the prime target of Adolf Hitler’s genocidal purges.

  • The locals of Redcar, who served as extras in the Dunkirk scene, were paid fifty pounds sterling.

  • This was the last HD DVD release by Universal Pictures.

  • Post-production took nine months.

  • Included among the “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”, edited by Steven Schneider.

  • The script was written by Christopher Hampton instead of the book’s author Ian McEwan, as the latter said it would be “a little dull” to go redo the novel.

  • Director Joe Wright imagined that Cecilia would not be sexually experienced and losing her virginity to Robbie in the library scene, even though a historian informed him that given the time, place, and her background, she probably would have been sexually active during her college years.

  • Keira Knightley and Benedict Cumberbatch appeared in The Imitation Game (2014).

  • Director Joe Wright had the name Cyndie, which is his mother’s name, painted on the beached barge.

  • Joe Wright was apparently so impressed by Sir David Lean’s epic work that he screened most of it before making this movie, and then instructed Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey also to watch Lean’s oeuvre, with the hope of being able to match some of Lean’s power. Lean’s widow Sandra Lean, however, felt she “just didn’t like the movie. I thought it was terrible and badly directed. Everyone goes on about the long shot of the beach at Dunkirk, but I thought it was boring and laborious. Obviously, they were trying to get the feel of a David Lean epic, but they failed. Without David, it’s not so easy.”

  • This is the first movie of Benedict Cumberbatch set during World War II. The second was The Imitation Game (2014).
  • Saoirse Ronan starred in On Chesil Beach (2017), also adapted from a novel by Ian McEwan.

  • Director Cameo – Joe Wright: Appears during the lengthy tracking sequence on Dunkirk beach.

  • As Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) is hauled off by the Police and his mother frantically yells “liar” while running up the road, Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) peers from a staircase landing through a window decorated with figures in stained glass. The figure in the window Briony stares through is labelled “Matilda”. This is an allusion to a famous children’s poem by Hilaire Belloc entitled “Matilda”, whose first line runs, “Matilda told such dreadful lies, it made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes”. By the end of the poem, Matilda has burned to death, having called wolf one time too many.

  • In the DVD commentary, Director Joe Wright said for the assault scene, he instructed Benedict Cumberbatch to leave his underwear on. A digital butt was then added to make it appear that Cumberbatch does have his underwear down and his bare behind showing.

The 3 Guys Rating

2.7/5

About The Movie From IMDB

Atonement Drama, Mystery, Romance, War | 123min | January 11, 2008 (United States) 7.8
Director: Joe WrightWriter: Ian McEwan, Christopher HamptonStars: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Brenda BlethynSummary: When Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan), thirteen-years-old and an aspiring writer, sees her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) at the fountain in front of the family estate, she misinterprets what is happening, thus setting into motion a series of misunderstandings and a childish pique that will have lasting repercussions for all of them. Robbie is the son of a family servant toward whom the family has always been kind. They paid for his time at Cambridge and now he plans on going to medical school. After the fountain incident, Briony reads a letter intended for Cecilia and concludes that Robbie is a deviant. When her cousin Lola (Juno Temple) is raped, she tells the Police that it was Robbie she saw committing the deed. —garykmcd

Photos


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Videos


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Cast

Keira Knightley
...
Cecilia Tallis
James McAvoy
...
Robbie Turner
Brenda Blethyn
...
Grace Turner
Saoirse Ronan
...
Briony Tallis, aged 13
Ailidh Mackay
...
Singing Housemaid
Julia West
...
Betty
Harriet Walter
...
Emily Tallis
Juno Temple
...
Lola Quincey
Felix von Simson
...
Pierrot Quincey
Charlie von Simson
...
Jackson Quincey
Alfie Allen
...
Danny Hardman
Patrick Kennedy
...
Leon Tallis
Benedict Cumberbatch
...
Paul Marshall
Peter Wight
...
Police Inspector
Leander Deeny
...
Police Constable
Peter McNeil O'Connor
...
Police Sergeant
Daniel Mays
...
Tommy Nettle
Nonso Anozie
...
Frank Mace

See full cast >>
Countries: United Kingdom, France, United StatesLanguages: English, FrenchBudget: $30,000,000 (estimated)
Source: imdb.com
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Quotes From The Movie

7.8
Atonement 123min | Drama, Mystery, Romance, War | January 11, 2008 (United States)
Director: Joe WrightWriter: Ian McEwan, Christopher HamptonStars: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Brenda Blethyn
Summary: Thirteen-year-old fledgling writer Briony Tallis irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.
Countries: United Kingdom, France, United StatesLanguages: English, French
Source: imdb.comDisclaimer: This plugin has been coded to automatically quote data from imdb.com. Not available for any other purpose. All showing data have a link to imdb.com. The user is responsible for any other use or change codes.

Quotes

Cecilia Tallis: I love you. I'll wait for you. Come back. Come back to me.

[last lines]

Older Briony: So, my sister and Robbie were never able to have the time together they both so longed for... and deserved. Which ever since I've... ever since I've always felt I prevented. But what sense of hope or satisfaction could a reader derive from an ending like that? So in the book, I wanted to give Robbie and Cecilia what they lost out on in life. I'd like to think this isn't weakness or... evasion... but a final act of kindness. I gave them their happiness.

Robbie Turner: [about the letter he sent her] It was a mistake.

Cecilia Tallis: Briony read it.

Robbie Turner: I'm so sorry, it was the wrong version.

Cecilia Tallis: Yes.

Robbie Turner: It was never meant to be read.

Cecilia Tallis: No.

[walks away, Robbie follows her]

Cecilia Tallis: What was in the version I was meant to read?

Robbie Turner: Don't know... it was more formal, and less...

Cecilia Tallis: Anatomical?

Robbie Turner: Yes.

Robbie Turner: [voiceover] Dearest Cecilia, the story can resume. The one I had been planning on that evening walk. I can become again the man who once crossed the surrey park at dusk, in my best suit, swaggering on the promise of life. The man who, with the clarity of passion, made love to you in the library. The story can resume. I will return. Find you, love you, marry you and live without shame.

[Robbie has just broken a vase belonging to Cecilia's family]

Cecilia Tallis: You idiot... You realize that's probably the most valuable thing we own?

Robbie Turner: Not anymore it isn't.

Robbie Turner: [glares at Briony] What is she doing here?

Cecilia Tallis: She came to speak to me.

Robbie Turner: Oh, yes? What about?

Briony - 18 years old: The terrible thing I did.

[Robbie moves around the room, putting his hands in his pockets and taking them out again, still glaring at Briony]

Robbie Turner: I'll be quite honest with you. I'm torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs.

[Briony trembles as she tries to stand her ground]

Robbie Turner: Have you any idea what it's like in jail? Course you don't. Tell me, did it give you pleasure to think of me inside?

Briony - 18 years old: No.

Robbie Turner: But you did nothing about it.

Briony - 18 years old: No.

Robbie Turner: Do you think I assaulted your cousin?

Briony - 18 years old: No.

Robbie Turner: Did you think it then?

Briony - 18 years old: Yes, yes and no. I wasn't certain.

Robbie Turner: And what's made you so certain now?

Briony - 18 years old: Growing up.

Robbie Turner: Growing up?

Briony - 18 years old: I was thirteen.

Robbie Turner: How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? Do you have to be eighteen? Do you have to be eighteen before you can bring yourself to own up to a lie? There are soldiers of eighteen old enough to be left to die on the side of the road! Did you know that?

Briony - 18 years old: Yes.

Robbie Turner: Five years ago you didn't care about telling the truth. You and all your family, you just assumed that for all my education, I was still little better than a servant, still not to be trusted. Thanks to you, they were able to close ranks and throw me to the fucking wolves!

[Robbie appears as though he is about to push Briony out the window that she is backing up to, but Cecilia intervenes]

Cecilia Tallis: Robbie! Robbie, don't! Please! Look at me, Robbie! Look at me! Come back! Come back to me!

[Cecilia kisses Robbie gently and lingeringly on the lips while Briony looks away]

Cecilia Tallis: [crying] I don't know how I could've been so ignorant about myself... so... so stupid. And you know what I'm talking about, don't you? You knew before I did.

Robbie Turner: Why're you crying?

Cecilia Tallis: Don't you know?

Robbie Turner: Yes, I know exactly.

[kisses her]

Robbie Turner: Have you been in touch with your family?

Cecilia Tallis: No I told you I wouldn't. Leon waited outside the hospital last week. I just pushed past him.

Robbie Turner: Cee, you don't owe me anything.

Cecilia Tallis: Robbie didn't you read my letters? Had I been allowed to visit you? Had they let me, every day, I would have been there every day.

Robbie Turner: Yes but, if all we have rests on a few moments in a library three and a half years ago then I am not sure, I don't know...

Cecilia Tallis: Robbie, look at me, come back, come back to me.

Cecilia Tallis: Robbie...

Robbie Turner: Cecilia...

Cecilia Tallis: I love you...

Robbie Turner: I love you.

Cecilia Tallis: There isn't much time. Robbie has to report for duty at six and he's got a train to catch. So sit down. There are some things you're going to do for us.

[Briony and Cecilia sit in the kitchen. Robbie leans on the table, looming over them]

Robbie Turner: You'll go to your parents as soon as you can and tell them everything they need to know to be convinced that your evidence was false. You'll go and see a solicitor and make a statement and have it signed and witnessed and send copies to us. Is that clear?

Briony - 18 years old: Yes.

Robbie Turner: Then you'll write a detailed letter to me, explaining everything that led up to you saying you saw me by the lake.

Cecilia Tallis: Try and include whatever you can remember of what Danny Hardman was doing that night.

Briony - 18 years old: Hardman?

Robbie Turner: Yes!

Briony - 18 years old: It wasn't Danny Hardman. It was Leon's friend, Marshall.

[Cecilia and Robbie look at her, astonished]

Cecilia Tallis: I don't believe you.

Briony - 18 years old: He's married Lola; I've just come from their wedding.

[Silence. Finally, Robbie exhales the breath he's been holding, Cecilia looks across at him]

Cecilia Tallis: Lola won't be able to testify against him now. He's immune.

[Robbie straightens up and turns away, grappling with a riot of emotions; silence; finally, Briony stands up and speaks, very formal]

Briony - 18 years old: I'm very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I'm very, very sorry.

Robbie Turner: Just do as I have asked of you. Write it all down. Just the truth. No rhymes, no embellishments, no adjectives. And then leave us be.

Briony - 18 years old: I will. I promise.

[she leaves abruptly, her eyes brimming with tears]

Robbie Turner: Come on, pal. You should be getting dressed.

Briony Tallis, aged 13: If I fell in the river, would you save me?

Robbie Turner: Of course.

[Briony jumps into the water and Robbie dives after her; eventually, he pulls her out of the water and drops her near the bank]

Briony Tallis, aged 13: Thank you, thank you, thank you...

Robbie Turner: That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do.

Briony Tallis, aged 13: I wanted you to save me.

Robbie Turner: Don't you know how easily you could have drowned?

Briony Tallis, aged 13: You saved me.

Robbie Turner: You stupid child! You could have killed us both! Is that your idea of a joke?

[she looks at him for a moment, shocked by his tone, but defiant nonetheless]

Briony Tallis, aged 13: I want to thank you for saving my life. I'll be eternally grateful to you.

[he strides away angrily, into the woods, leaving Briony disconsolate amidst the cow parsley]

Briony - 18 years old: I want to go in front of a judge and change my evidence, Cee.

Cecilia Tallis: Don't call me that!

[pause]

Cecilia Tallis: Please don't call me that.

Briony Tallis, aged 13: Yes. I saw him. I saw him with my own eyes.

Robbie Turner: I won't say a word.

Robbie Turner: Wake me before 7:00, would you? Thanks so much.

Robbie Turner: You won't hear another word from me. Promise.

Cecilia Tallis: My brother and I found the two of them down by the lake.

Police Inspector: You didn't see anyone else?

Cecilia Tallis: I wouldn't necessarily believe everything Briony tells you. She's rather fanciful.

Robbie Turner: ...if all we have rests in a few moments in a library three and a half years ago, then I don't know... I don't...

Cecilia Tallis: Robbie... look at me. Look at me. Come back. Come back to me.

Briony - 18 years old: Dear Cecilia, Please don't throw this away without reading it. As you'll have seen from the notepaper, I'm here at St. Thomas's, doing my nurses' training. I decided not to take up my place at Cambridge. I decided I wanted to make myself useful, do something practical. But no matter how hard I work, no matter how long the hours, I can't escape from what I did and what it meant, the full extent of which I'm only now beginning to grasp. Cee, please write and tell me we can meet. Your sister, Briony.

Cecilia Tallis: [Referring to Paul Marshall] I suppose he's what you might call "eligible."

Leon Tallis: Rather.

Cecilia Tallis: He certainly seems to think he's the cat's pajamas. Which is odd, considering he has pubic hair growing out of his ears. I should imagine he'd give you a lot of very noisy, boneheaded sons.

Leon Tallis: He's quite a good egg, actually.

Cecilia Tallis: You say that about everyone.

Briony - 18 years old: I am very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused you. I am very, very sorry...

Briony Tallis, aged 13: Cee?

Cecilia Tallis: Yes?

Briony Tallis, aged 13: Why don't you talk to Robbie anymore?

Cecilia Tallis: I do. We just move in different circles, that's all.

Cecilia Tallis: [about Robbie] No need to encourage him.

Cecilia Tallis: [to Robbie] My darling, Briony found my address somehow and sent a letter. The first surprise was she didn't go up to Cambridge. She's doing nurse's training at my old hospital. I think she may be doing this as some kind of penance. She says she's beginning to get the full grasp of what she did and what it meant. She wants to come and talk to me. I love you. I'll wait for you. Come back. Come back to me.

[she kisses the letter and posts it]

Cecilia Tallis: I love you. I'll wait for you.

Lola Quincey: [Lola has just extracted the lead role in Briony's play - Arabella - from its obviously reluctant author] I suppose we should start by reading it.

Briony Tallis, aged 13: [sharply] If you're going to be Arabella, then I'll be the director, thank you very much.

Tommy Nettle: Never trust a sailor on dry land.

[first lines]

Briony Tallis, aged 13: I finished my play.

Leon Tallis: What do you say, Cee? Does the hot weather make you behave badly? Good heavens, you're blushing.

Cecilia Tallis: Just hot in here, that's all.

Paul Marshall: Bite it... You've got to bite it...

Leon Tallis: Guess who we met on the way in.

Cecilia Tallis: Robbie.

Leon Tallis: Told him to join us tonight.

Cecilia Tallis: Oh, Leon, you didn't!

Tommy Nettle: No one speaks the fucking lingo out here. You can't say 'pass the biscuit' or 'where's me hand grenade?', they just shrug. Cause they hate us too. I mean, that's the point. We fight in France and the French fucking hate us. Make me Home Secretary and I'll sort this out in a fucking minute. We got India and Africa, right? Jerry can have France and Belgium and whatever else they want. Who's fucking ever been to Poland? It's all about room, Empire. They want more empire, give 'em this shithole, we keep ours and it's Bob's your uncle and Fanny's your fucking aunt! Think about it.

Briony Tallis, aged 13: Prologue.

Briony Tallis, aged 13: This is the tale of spontaneous Arabella,

Briony Tallis, aged 13: Who ran away with an extrinsic fellow.

Briony Tallis, aged 13: It grieved her parents to see their firstborn

Briony Tallis, aged 13: Evanesce from her home to go to Eastbourne.

Cecilia Tallis: Come back. Come back to me.

Briony Tallis, aged 13: How can you hate plays?

Briony - 18 years old: There is no Briony.

Tommy Nettle: Cheerio, pal.

Fiona Maguire: It says in the newspaper the army are making "strategic withdrawals."

Briony - 18 years old: Yes, I saw that. It's a euphemism for "retreat."

Briony Tallis, aged 13: The princess was well aware of his remorseless wickedness. But that made it no easier to overcome the voluminous love she felt in her heart for Sir Romulus. The princess knew instinctively that the one with red hair was not to be trusted. As his young ward dived again and again into the depths of the lake, in search of the enchanted chalice, Sir Romulus twirled his luxuriant mustache. Sir Romulus rode with his two companions, northwards, drawing ever closer to an effulgent sea. So heroic in manner, he appeared so valiant in word... And no could ever guess at the darkness lurking in the black heart of Sir Romulus Turnbull. He was the most dangerous man in the world.

Briony Tallis, aged 13: Lola, can I tell you something? Something really terrible?

Lola Quincey: Yes please.

Briony Tallis, aged 13: What's the worst word you can possibly imagine?

Sister Drummond: Now go and wash the blood off your face.

Pierrot Quincey: When can we go home?

Lola Quincey: Soon.

Jackson Quincey: We can't go, it's a divorce.

Lola Quincey: [shaking him] How dare you say that! Don't you ever ever use that word again, do you understand?

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