Historical Context

The historical context was portrayed very well in the film, from the sound of the typewriter, which the movie begins with, to the clothing, vehicles, furniture, etc., and finally the war scene. Right from the beginning of the film, viewers know the story is based in an older time period, which in this case the story began in the year 1935. Wright did a great job capturing McEwan's description of all aspects dealing with the historical context of the story.

Clothing

The choice of clothing in a film has a huge significance to the time frame in which the plot of the story occurs, and Wright, as well as his designer Jacqueline Durran, did an amazing job capturing the historical look in each piece of clothing shown in the film.
McEwan spent a lot of time in the novel writing about Cecilia picking out the perfect gown to wear to dinner, and he described the look as, "a mermaid who rose to meet her in her own full-length mirror." Durran, did an absolutely, fabulous job portraying this look, making a beautiful, silky dress which flows with Cecilia's body, as well as giving the gown a thirties style to fit the time frame of the story.
Durran also successfully captured the thirties/forties look with Briony's outfits as well. From the simple white dress she wears as a child, with the folded down collar, to the old-fashioned nurses uniform when she's older. It all fits perfectly into the historical context of the story.

Furniture/Design

Furniture and decorative objects are another key factor in portraying history in a film, and once again, Wright does not disappoint. The Tallis house is filled with what looks to be antique items, such as the old fashioned lamp, and the golden-colour picture frames and mirrors. The floral design was also very popular back in the thirties, which is very much a part of the Tallis home. The curved shaped couch has a floral design, the floor mat, and even every wall in the house seems to be covered with a floral design wall paper, all adding to the thirties/forties based theme of the story.

The War Scene

The Second World War is a huge part of our history. There were over one hundred million people who served in the military, and it was also the most widespread war of our history, resulting in many deaths. This was in fact, the deadliest combat of all time. Therefore, including this piece of our past in Atonement, gives the story huge historical context.

The war scene in the film was done incredibly well, although there were a few things that were left out, such as the scene where Robbie tried to save a woman and her young child from a bombing. If that were shown in this scene it would have created more emotion, portraying Robbie as the caring man that he is, risking his own life to save a child who is a total stranger to him. However, this scene is still extremely heart wrenching. Seeing all these men wanting nothing more but to get home to their families, seeing all of their injuries and shredded clothing, and the desperation in Robbie's eyes when he realized he couldn't get back to Cecilia when they arrived at the beach and saw no ships awaiting them, is just torturous to watch. Even seeing Briony at the hospital, the anticipation you get when you think she's going to come across Robbie in the crowds of wounded soldiers is incredible, especially knowing that he'd gone through all of this for a crime that he didn't commit, all because of her false accusations. And what's more heart wrenching to know, is even though this whole story was written by someone page-by-page, scene-by-scene, these war and hospital scenes actually occurred in our history, bringing this scene so much more importance and emotion to the story as a whole.