Atonement

On a hot day at an English country house in 1935, a precocious girl named Briony misreads scenes of adult desire between her sister and the housekeeper's son. Her false accusation sends an innocent man to prison and then to war, severing the lovers, and the consequences follow all three through the years that come after.

The film reads as a study of the child's misinterpretation of sexuality, of guilt that organises a whole life, and of the wish to repair by narrative when repair in fact is no longer possible. It touches screen memory and fantasy directly. It won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Drama in 2008 and is based on the novel Atonement by Ian McEwan.