Atonement (2007)
- During the filming of Atonement, James McAvoy improvised one of the most famous lines in the movie.
- Many of the practical effects used in the climax were achieved without any CGI.
- Before James McAvoy was cast, several major A-list stars turned down the lead role because they felt the script was too risky.
Atonement is a 2007 British romantic war drama directed by Joe Wright, based on Ian McEwan's 2001 novel. Keira Knightley and James McAvoy star as Cecilia Tallis and Robbie Turner, whose budding romance on a 1935 English country estate is destroyed when Cecilia's 13-year-old sister Briony, played by Saoirse Ronan, witnesses an intimate encounter between them and โ through a combination of misunderstanding, jealousy, and imagination โ falsely accuses Robbie of a crime that sends him to prison and eventually to the battlefields of World War II. The film's centerpiece was a five-minute, single-take tracking shot across the beaches of Dunkirk, following Robbie through the chaos of the evacuation in an unbroken movement that was one of the most technically ambitious and emotionally devastating shots of the decade.
Saoirse Ronan's performance as young Briony, whose privileged, literary imagination makes her both sympathetic and monstrous, announced a major talent. Dario Marianelli's score, incorporating the sound of a typewriter as a percussive instrument, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. Atonement earned $129 million worldwide on a $30 million budget.
