Atonement Film Analysis

The meaningful changes the characters in Atonement go through are what make the film successful in engaging the audience as it helps the audience to relate to the characters, their experiences and their motives throughout the film. The director, Joe Wright, uses a variety of motifs and symbols to support this idea and to help the audience understand the significance of scenes such as the fountain scene, from the perspective of Robbie and Cecilia; Briony’s meeting with the French soldier; and the interview scene, when Briony reveals her wrongdoings and how she attempts to atone for her mistakes.
Throughout every film, characters go through meaningful changes and their stories develop in terms of their environment. Characters must go through
In Atonement, the film draws success from the depth to which it shows how the characters’ changes affect the entire film and how the audience can learn from these changes. Briony’s decisions greatly affected the lives of Robbie and Cecilia after her false accusation of Robbie raping Lola sent him to the war. While the change she went through during her time at the hospital doesn’t directly impact their lives after this point, it shows us how change can lead to accepting our mistakes and forgiving ourselves and others. During the interview with present day Briony, she reveals to us that the ending to her book, in which Robbie and Cecilia are happily married and live in the Seaside Cottage, is fiction. Wright uses the symbol of the Seaside Cottage in the fiction ending to represent Robbie and Cecilia’s love and how they weren’t able to have their dream together. However, it also represents Briony wanting to give them a happy ending, despite all the trouble she has caused them in the past. The change Briony went through during her night with the French soldier in the hospital led to her being able to accept her mistake and the consequences that came with it, therefore leading to her using the power of storytelling to write a happy ending for Robbie and Cecilia by the Seaside Cottage. Writing their happy ending was Briony’s way of apologising and seeking forgiveness. Briony’s change in character ultimately resulted in her achieving atonement and the audience can learn from this that every choice has a consequence, and in order to change the outcome we have to go through meaningful changes. The director uses the fact that Briony’s actions and character changes had an impact on Robbie and Cecilia’s storyline to teach us that everything we do has an impact on others, and if the impact is negative we need to change the way we choose to