13/06/2006

UK filmmaker Joe Wright is reuniting with Keira Knightley, the star of his film Pride and Prejudice [+see also:
trailer
film profile], for the start of principal photography this week of Atonement, Wright’s his new feature film based on the award-winning novel by Ian McEwan.

Adapted for the screen by Christopher Hampton (The Quiet American [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), the film will be shot on location in England and at London’s Shepperton Studios. The setting for this drama is on the hottest day of the summer of 1935. Thirteen year-old Briony Tallis (played by newcomer Saoirse Ronan) sees her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper’s son Robbie Turner (James McAvoy seen in Wimbledon), a childhood friend who, along with Briony's sister, has recently graduated from Cambridge.

By the end of the day, the lives of all three will have been changed forever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had never before dared to approach and will have become victims of the younger girl’s scheming imagination, and Briony will have committed a dreadful crime, the guilt for which will colour her entire life.

Other key cast members include Abbie Cornish (The Golden Age) as Briony at 18, and Brenda Blethyn (Little Voice). The film is being produced by Paul Webster (Pride And Prejudice) with Working Title's co-managing directors Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner.