Isn’t a big part of our lives thinking back or forward about the things we should have or shouldn’t have done? Don’t so many things spin around our heads, about how life should have been, had it been on a different course? Do we not often hark back to terrible events that plague us with guilt and wish that we could re-invent the past, but the damage is done and there is no going back?

       If we have done something terrible, the burden is stronger than we can bare. The harsh realities of the past cannot be changed, but with the written word and the rich imagination of a writer, it can go in a totally different direction, one far more palatable. Other people’s lives can be reconstructed to become longer and richer, as imagination dictates how they should be or should have been. The process will be cathartic and can act as the only road to salvation.

       Briony Tallis, 13, (Saoirse Ronan) has a reservoir of imagination and a creative urge to write. Unfortunately her perspective of older sister Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley), and the handsome gardener (James McAvoy), is horribly misconstrued. We later find out she also has a massive crush on the gardener Robbie Turner, who is the son of the Tallis family housekeeper. Robbie has a Cambridge education courtesy of his mother's employer.

       This film has many facets to it, including a well-observed depiction of the British class system. With rejection, love can easily shift to hate and indeed follows their desire to mortally wound the person, who was previously the object of affection. We see Celia and Robbie interacting; sometimes the reality is seen, but also through the eyes of Briony and her warped perspective. Some scenes are totally surreal. When Robbie accidentally knocks over a vase into a fountain, Celia, chooses to dive in and retrieve a broken fragment. From Briony’s perspective, she imagines a moment of passion has just taken place. She slowly gets it into her head that Robbie is some kind of sexual predator preying on her sister. It is true the two of them do have deep running feelings, but as the film unravels Celia is aloof and has an eye on marrying a more suitable catch, who comes from a more correct background. Although, for his part, Robbie was similarly educated at Cambridge, but following a scholarship, naturally he is still not from the right stock.

       The character of Paul Marshall, (Benedict Cumberbatch) a guest of her brother Leon, appears to have all the right credentials. He is loaded with money, owns a chocolate business that has struck a permanent deal with the military, and as war looms runs a bar with the crass title of "ammo".

       The house the early part of the film takes place in, is sumptuously decorated and brimming full of great artifacts. Robbie has been invited to dinner, much to Celia’s annoyance and is seen typing letters of apology for his flippant behavior by the fountain. Unfortunately for him, after typing a very formal offering, he types one that is quite simply overtly sexual and direct about his feelings for Celia. He is smartly dressed up in his suit and makes his way to the large house for dinner. He asks Briony to give the letter to her older sister, but he has unfortunately enclosed the wrong letter and has put in the letter of the sexual innuendo. Briony seizes the chance to read the letter and her mind is poisoned ever more against Robbie. She gleefully hands the letter to her sister. From being aloof, there is then a sudden transition in Celia, which for me was a bit too sudden and Celia and Ribbie go to the library, where they not only reveal their true feelings, they also engage in a passionate love making act, which is inadvertently observed by Briony. All of this leads to Briony’s terrible act of treachery, in which, Robbie is falsely accused of raping a young girl (a cousin taking refuge, while her parents are going through a messy divorce).

       The real perpetrator is revealed later in the film, but it is obvious why Robbie has to take the rap, (his lower social status) for a crime he could not and would not have even contemplated. He is shamed and sent to prison, all on the word of thirteen year old girl, with a furtive imagination and a head full of fantasy and envy. We later find him four years later trapped in a barn, during the Second World War. He has been given the stark choice of fighting for his country or rotting in prison. His liaison with Celia, is still very much alive, despite his time in prison, but will they be able to add to their fleeting moment of passion, all of three minutes? Of course they deserve to have the happiness, that has been denied by Briony and her flagrant lie.

       Audiences start to will Robbie to survive the war, but will he survive physically and mentally. The war is depicted realistically as one full of mayhem. Soldiers walk around in a dazed state. We see a mass of soldiers on a beach, in Dunkirk, the scene is one of bedlam. We see Briony trying to make an abortive attempt at a reconciliation with her older sister. The sound track is strong and is often mixed in with the sound of an old-fashioned typewriter, tapping away. The last re-incarnation of Briony is the eminent actress Venessa Redgrave, and it it is through her, we discover the reality of what happened to Robbie and Celia. It has been Briony’s resourceful imagination that has powered the storyline, the truth blurred and embellished, the catalyst being her guilt, harking back to the day when she condemned her older sister and Robbie’s love to short lived encounter, a love that is never allow to bloom to it’s full potential.

       The film is a visual feast, with some surreal and at times disturbing images, especially during the war sequence. There is some fine acting, though I do hold strong reservations of Keira Knightley. She does a " passable" job, but I can imagine a director really has to squeeze a performance out of her. She fits in nicely in a teen movie or in the Pirates of the Caribbean type movie. Her performance seems thin and when we think of other British actresses of the ilk of the talented Kate Winslett or Kelly MacDonald, Keira Knightley seems really lacking. A few reservations aside I was really drawn by this film, the result of a novel by writer Ian McEwan.