Reviewing Movies

Robbie Turner’s transgression was associating with people above his station in life. His mother’s employer may have willingly put his housekeeper’s son through school but having him affianced to his daughter would be quite another matter. When her younger sister tells an awful lie about him “the family closed ranks and threw him to the wolves”. Rather than rot in jail for an offense he did not commit he volunteers to fight in WW#1. The remainder of the movie shows scenes from the retreat to the beach at Dunkirk, and of the sisters serving as nurses in London Hospitals. As much as a romance craves for a happy ending in this tale none is possible. There are some hurts for which there is no atonement. No matter what she does Briony can never undo the hurt she has visited on her sister and Robbie.