On a sultry summer day in 1935 an upper-class British family prepares for a dinner party at their country estate. The players: Briony Tallis (newcomer Saoirse Ronan) a precocious preteen writer; her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) Cambridge graduate and femme fatale; Robbie Turner (James McEvoy) the housekeeper's mensch-y son who carries a torch for Cecilia; and various visitors and family members. A series of misperceptions fueled by the summer heat and Briony's childish hurts and fevered imagination lead to a dramatic false accusation that lands Robbie in jail. We meet all three characters five years later in the thick of World War II as foot soldier Robbie prepares for the Dunkirk evacuation and the two estranged sisters train as nurses in London.

Director Joe Wright (PRIDE AND PREJUDICE) deserves high praise for translating Ian McEwan's highly internalized multilayered tale of guilt redemption and the power and limits of the artistic imagination into a sumptuous visual f...