Joe Wright’s “Atonement” presents us with two people who fall in love, only to see them torn away from each other because of a sibling who ends up bringing on her own sorrow – and it’s all set to a musical score featuring the sound of typewriter keys.

Of course the typewriter has its purpose. The story itself is the product of one of the characters who is literally attempting to write the movie we are watching.

Beginning in a wealthy countryside household in 1935 Britain, the journey introduces us to an upper-class English family, taking us to World War II Dunkirk and concluding in a late-20th-century television studio.

The film gives you a feeling not unlike the experience of viewing “The English Patient.”

Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) is the son of a family housekeeper, and he is falling profoundly in love with Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley), the daughter of a wealthy family who tends to ignore him.

On one summer day, Robbie tosses an heirloom piece belonging to Cecilia’s family into a fountain. With unspeakable fury, she jumps into the fountain to retrieve it, only to be at a complete loss for words once she returns with the heirloom and realizes she is almost naked in a wet, near-transparent undergarment.

Robbie soon returns to his home and attempts to write a letter to apologize for his behavior at the fountain. Then he changes his mind, typing a letter of heated passion to release his feelings for Cecilia, with the intent that no one will see it – especially Cecilia.

Robbie soon scribbles a real letter of apology and quickly dresses in formal wear for dinner at Cecilia’s house. On his way, he gives the envelope with the letter to Briony (Saoirse Ronan), Cecilia’s 13 year-old sister, to give to her. But, after a moment of reflection, he realizes, too late, he placed the wrong letter in that envelope.

Briony has her own history with Robbie. The young adolescent is in love with him, and she is already using her deep imagination to write plays. With her high vocabulary comprehension and lust for Robbie, she reads the letter, and her imagination runs wild when she sees the language he uses.

The screenplay by Christopher Hampton is a very decorative piece that uses every scene to tell a piece of the story and set up each person’s destiny. This holds especially true during the second half of the film the characters go their separate ways.

Knightley teams with director Wright – they did “Pride and Prejudice” together – to an even more glossy sound of English vocabulary and a foreshadowing of geopolitics. The film is gorgeously filmed and there is one long continuous shot at Dunkirk that is breathtaking to watch.

A unique part of the script is the fountain scene. It’s first seen though the eyes of Briony, and we initially think Robbie was mistreating Cecilia in some sort of sex game. However, we then see the scene from Robbie and Cecilia’s point of view, which discredits the brief and skewed moment Briony saw. It turns out the fountain was the first mutual expression of love between the two.

The same occurs during a scene in the family library when Briony catches the two in a sexually placed position on the wall. We soon see the real point of view and are reassured it is not rape, but the two of them are in love with each other.

However, Robbie is soon sent to prison after Briony falsely accuses him of raping Cecilia and Briony’s 15 year-old cousin Lola (Juno Temple). He is released a few years later on the condition that he join the war effort against Germany.

This second half is centered around the war and is filled cinematic melodrama and the self-meditation of the characters on how their lives are now in shambles. It is the very end of the film where Vanessa Redgrave, as an elderly Briony, cuts to the soul of the movie and her character. She teaches what the atonement is.

Though this film has been heavily nominated by the Hollywood Foreign Press’s Golden Globes Awards, any chance to heat up the Oscars seems unlikely with such titles as “No Country for Old Men,” “Juno” and “There Will Be Blood” out there garnering more attention and more awards thus far.

“Atonement” is a beautiful film to look at and the acting and dialogue are well done and, though the last half modestly falls into a story that we’ve seen before, the end revitalizes anything that was lacking.

-Anthony Capps is a junior in journalism and mass communication.