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Winning an Academy Award is one of Hollywood's greatest honors, and it often takes a lifetime's worth of work for actors, directors, filmmakers, or writers to finally get one. However, there have been rare instances where actors manage to skip the queue and jump straight into awards and accolades at extraordinarily young ages. While in many non-acting categories, it’s common for artists to work in Hollywood for decades before even gaining a nomination, it’s astonishing just how young some of the recipients have been.

Even though some extraordinary actors have yet to win Oscars, occasionally, the recipient's work is so impressive that the Academy took notice straight from the get-go and gave Oscars to incredibly young people. Sometimes, these wins have been so unprecedented that the actor has held on to their title as the youngest in their category for decades. As the youngest Academy Award winners ever,...

"All in the Family" might've been Norman Lear's finest half-hour as a sitcom producer, but I'm not sure he ever put a funnier show on the airwaves than "The Jeffersons." For 11 seasons, Sherman Hemsley's dry-cleaning magnate George Jefferson and Isabel Sanford's good-hearted Louise "Weezy" Jefferson led a stellar cast that delivered edgy-for-network-television laughs revolving around race, class, gender, and whatever happened to be grinding the hot-headed George's gears that particular week. It was the African-American answer to "All in the Family" (on which the characters of George and Weezy originated), and might actually be more shocking today for its fearless deployment of the n-word (particularly early in the series' run).

And if you're making a list of the most memorable theme songs in television history, "The Jeffersons" better be in the top five. Anyone who grew up watching the show in prime time or via syndication should...

Barry Sonnenfeld leaped from hot cinematographer status to A- list director with this sure-footed big screen adaptation of the TV show based on Charles Addams’s marvelously morbid New Yorker cartoons. The cast is ideal: Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia complement TV’s Carolyn Jones and John Astin without inviting comparisons. Winning an imaginary award for making sick jokes safe for PG-13, the script has true wit. The characters have depth as well, which is wonderful. Daring to be out of step with the times, the elaborate production, costumes and special effects are all on the same page: director Sonnenfeld and producer Scott Rudin see to it that the goofy premise never wears thin. The 4K encoding is a dazzler.

The Addams Family

4K Ultra-hd + Digital Code

‘With More Mamushka!’

Paramount Home Video

1991 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date November 23, 2021 /

Starring: Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, Dan Hedaya, Elizabeth Wilson,...

Cynthia Harris, who appeared in numerous Broadway and Off Broadway productions and is most widely known for playing the mother of star Paul Reiser’s character on the sitcom Mad About You, died October 3 in New York. She was 87.

Showbiz & Media Figures We’ve Lost In 2021 – Photo Gallery

Her death was announced by her family.

Harris, a co-founder in 1993 of Off Broadway’s The Actors Company Theatre, for which she had served as a both an actor and co-artistic director, also starred in the 1979 TV miniseries Edward & Mrs. Simpson, playing Wallis Simpson. She was nominated for a BAFTA Award for the performance.

Harris replaced Barbara Barrie in the original 1970 Broadway production of the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical Company, playing the character Sarah. She would return to Broadway in 1974 in Terrence McNally’s Bad Habits, opposite F. Murray Abraham, Doris Roberts and Paul Benedict.

Harris made her film debut in Isadora (1968) starring Vanessa Redgrave,...

Near the pinnacle of director-driven ’70s cinema is this marvelous comedy about a ‘American Miss’ contest, and the swirl of personalities that come to support, promote and ogle the teen beauties just learning the ropes of the good old U.S. hype machine. Bruce Dern, Barbara Feldon and Michael Kidd are just wonderful as the adults in charge of the pageantry; Annette O’Toole, Joan Prather and Melanie Griffifth are among the hopefuls, learning an early lesson in a time honored, entirely bogus Americana ritual: as Michael Kidd says, he teaches these sweet kids to dance and behave like Vegas showgirls. It’s deceptively, distractingly funny — and as true as the day is long.

Smile

Blu-ray

Fun City Editions

1975 / Color /1:85 widescreen / 113 min. / Street Date May 25, 2021 / Available from Vinegar Syndrome / 34.99

Starring: Bruce Dern, Barbara Feldon, Michael Kidd, Eric Shea, Geoffrey Lewis, Nicholas Pryor, Titos Vandis, Paul Benedict, William Traylor, Dick McGarvin,...

“Holmes & Watson??”

By Raymond Benson

In one of the quirkier movies released in the early 1970s, George C. Scott moves through the streets of New York City with his eyes alight with fire, wonder, and confidence as Joanne Woodward follows him into every don’t-do-that situation like a lovesick schoolgirl.

The thing is—Scott plays a judge who has gone, well, a little funny in the head and thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes. Woodward is a psychiatrist who desperately wants to treat him, and her name just happens to be Dr. Watson.

Directed by Anthony Harvey, the movie is based on a play by James Goldman, who also penned the screenplay. Harvey’s previous film was the superb The Lion in Winter (1968), which garnered him an Oscar nomination for directing, along with a Best Picture nod and a trophy for Katharine Hepburn (for Best Actress). Perhaps more significant is that...

There’s an episode of 21 Jump Street where the cops go undercover at a performing arts high school. Peter DeLuise’s Doug Penhall has to perform a scene in acting class, and opts to do something from an episode of the classic Fifties sitcom The Honeymooners rather than from a play. He and Johnny Depp’s Tom Hanson do pretty good impressions of Jackie Gleason and Art Carney, but the teacher’s not impressed. He tells Penhall to forget about the TV show and just play the reality of the scene.

Norman Lear’s Cold Turkey is preferred by 4 out of 5 doctors, and the other doctor is a fool that doesn’t smoke cigarettes. Lear’s triple-threat writing, producing and directing effort is by no means a lazy comedy, with its twenty featured actors dashing around like asylum inmates for ninety minutes. It’s not the show to help one kick the habit, that’s for sure — even though it makes smoking look appropriately disgusting.

Cold Turkey

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1971 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date May 29, 2018 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98

Starring: Dick Van Dyke, Bob Newhart, Pippa Scott, Tom Poston, Edward Everett Horton, Bob Elliott, Ray Goulding, Vincent Gardenia, Barnard Hughes, Graham Jarvis, Jean Stapleton, Barbara Cason, Judith Lowry, Sudie Bond, Helen Page Camp, Paul Benedict, Simon Scott, Raymond Kark, Peggy Rea, Woodrow Parfrey, M. Emmet Walsh, Gloria LeRoy, Walter Sande, Harvey Jason, Ted Knight, Stan Gottlieb.

Cinematography:...

Steve Martin brings down the house with this adoring, hilarious pastiche of mad doctor and disembodied brain motifs — surely the epitome of cultured comedy. Under Carl Reiner’s direction Martin is marvelous, and he’s aided and abetted by the daring sexpot-turned comedienne Kathleen Turner — who has a better handle on outrageous sexy comedy than they do. It’s class-act nonsense and inspired silliness. Where else can a crazed surgeon proclaim his special screw-top skull surgery method, and utter the immortal words, “Scum queen?!”

The Man with Two Brains

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1983 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 90 93 min. / Street Date August 29, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Steve Martin, Kathleen Turner, David Warner, Paul Benedict, Richard Brestoff, James Cromwell, George Furth, Peter Hobbs, Jeffrey Combs.

Cinematography: Michael Chapman

Film Editor: Bud Molin

Production Design: Polly Platt

Original Music: Joel Goldsmith

Written by Carl Reiner, George Gipe, Steve Martin

Produced by William E. McEuen,...

Robert Redford movies: TCM shows 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,' 'The Sting' They don't make movie stars like they used to, back in the days of Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, and Harry Cohn. That's what nostalgists have been bitching about for the last four or five decades; never mind the fact that movie stars have remained as big as ever despite the demise of the old studio system and the spectacular rise of television more than sixty years ago. This month of January 2015, Turner Classic Movies will be honoring one such post-studio era superstar: Robert Redford. Beginning this Monday evening, January 6, TCM will be presenting 15 Robert Redford movies. Tonight's entries include Redford's two biggest blockbusters, both directed by George Roy Hill and co-starring Paul Newman: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which turned Redford, already in his early 30s, into a major film star to rival Rudolph Valentino,...

The Warner Bros. catalog contains dozens of horror classics that have yet to make their way to Blu-ray and we hope to see more of them getting the high-definition upgrade in the near future. However, one title that has made Warner Bros. Home Entertainment’s release list is 1991′s The Addams Family and we have a look at the official cover art.

“When long-lost Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd) reappears after twenty-five years in the Bermuda Triangle, Gomez (Raul Julia) and Morticia Addams (Anjelica Huston) plan a celebration to wake the dead. But their daughter Wednesday (Christina Ricci) barely has time to warm up her electric chair before Thing points out Fester’s uncommonly “normal” behavior. Could this Fester be a fake, part of an evil scheme to raid the Addams fortune?”

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, The Addams Family stars Anjelica Huston, Raúl Juliá, Christopher Lloyd, Christina Ricci, Jimmy Workman, Judith Malina,...

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat is a monthly newspaper run by Steve DeBellis, a well know St. Louis historian, and it’s the largest one-man newspaper in the world. The concept of The Globe is that there is an old historic headline, then all the articles in that issue are written as though it’s the year that the headline is from. It’s an unusual concept but the paper is now in its 25th successful year! Steve and I collaborated recently on an all-Vincent Price issue of The Globe and he has asked me to write a regular monthly movie-related column. Since there is no on-line version of The Globe, I will be posting all of my articles here at We Are Movie Geeks. This month’s St. Louis Globe-Democrat is written as if it’s 1946.

Motion picture audiences may be curious who this odd-looking new horror star by...

A spin-off of Norman Lear's All in the Family, The Jeffersons ran for 11 seasons on CBS. The cast includes Isabel Sanford, Sherman Hemsley, Mike Evans, Roxie Roker, Franklin Cover, Marla Gibbs, Zara Cully, Berlinda Tolbert, Paul Benedict, Damon Evans, and Jay Hammer.

It was a top-rated show for many years. Unfortunately, The Jeffersons was unceremoniously cancelled in 1985 and a true series finale was never made. Hemsley recalls that he found out about the cancellation by reading about it in the newspaper.

Sadly, the cast never recorded a reunion special and most of the castmembers are gone now. Hemsley and Sanford did reunite several times over the years in commercials and various cameos.

Two of the most memorable instances took place on Will Smith's The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air sitcom. In the first appearance, Will and his girlfriend are having...

So another year has passed and its time for another round of awards for the people who make the television shows we like to watch.

Television is interesting these days. Never before have we seen such great, creative output. Never before have we been subjected to such drivel. It all gets paraded before us tonight, as we watch the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards (handed out, it should be noted, by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences) on CBS, CTV in Canada.

8:00

Interesting that the Emmys chose to introduce the 2009 edition of the Primetime awards by harkening back to the early days of television. Especially as the business of television has never been closer to a complete collapse. Oh, announcer who is trying so hard to sound like a TV host from the '50s. You don't sound at all like you're a three pack-a-day smoker.

8:01

Okay, here comes Neil Patrick Harris,...

For me, the only part of the Oscars worth watching every year is their tribute video, highlighting those in the movie industry that passed away in the previous year. It always puts a lump in my throat and often surprises me due to the passing of people I hadn’t heard about. And with the actors who were popular decades ago, it gives me a sense of melancholy nostalgia.

TCM (Turner Classic Movies) has put together their version of a tribute video which you can watch below, and it gave me the same feelings I just mentioned (I wasn’t aware they do one every year). It’s a beautiful video and very classy. They did miss a couple of people which I mention below.

I would suggest you watch the video before moving on to the list of names below it. It includes actors, directors, composers, screenwriters, animators, etc.

Actor Paul Benedict, best know for his role as the English neighbor Harry Bentley on The Jeffersons, has died at age 70. Benedict, who was born in New Mexico, was found dead Monday on Martha's Vineyard, the Associated Press reports. His brother, Charles, says that authorities are investigating the cause of death.Benedict, who appeared in the comedic ensemble movies A Mighty Wind and Waiting for Guffman, began his acting career in the 1960s in the Theatre Company of Boston. Stars such as Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino also started there. Benedict's role as the stuffy neighbor Bentley on The Jeffersons,...

The Jeffersons star Paul Benedict has died at the age of 70.

The actor - who was best known for playing English neighbour Harry Bentley on the long-running sitcom - was found dead on Monday on Martha's Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts.

The cause of death was not made public as WENN went to press.

Benedict also appeared as the Number Painter on children's TV show Sesame Street as well as in numerous films including 1977's The Goodbye Girl alongside Richard Dreyfuss.

This review was written for the festival review of "Atonement".Venice International Film Festival

VENICE, Italy -- "Atonement", Ian McEwan's best-selling novel of love thwarted by juvenile fantasy, has been rendered on screen so well by director Joe Wright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton that it ranks with the best novel adaptations of recent times. It was the opening film in competition at the Venice International Film Festival.

With compelling and charismatic performances by Keira Knightley and James McAvoy as the lovers, and a stunning contribution from Romola Garai as their remorseful nemesis, the film goes directly to "The English Patient" territory and might also expect rapturous audiences and major awards.

Like that film, "Atonement" deals with lovers parted by pitiless fate and promising to come back to each other in a time of war. It captures impeccably three periods of English life -- before, during and after World War II -- in its parallel stories of aching romance and deepest regret.

Wright and Hampton keep the structure of McEwan's novel so that the story's revelations are well hidden though foreshadowed and revisited cinematically in very clever ways. The first section deals with mid-1930s life in the Tallis family, minor-league aristocrats who bask in lazy wealth at their bucolic pile in the countryside. Father is seldom at home, but mother (Harriet Walter) maintains strict upper-middle-class standards, tolerant of Cecilia (Knightley), with her college degree, and indulgent toward 13-year-old Briony (Saoirse Ronan), who often disappears into her own fantasies.

It's a family weekend, and first-born Leon Tallis (Patrick Kennedy) has brought his friend Paul Benedict Cumberbatch), a wealthy chocolate manufacturer, to dinner. Also invited is the son of the family housekeeper (Brenda Blethyn), a young man named Robbie Turner (McAvoy), whose Cambridge education has been paid for by Tallis senior.

It is when Cecilia and Robbie discover and act on the passionate love that underpins their friendship that everything begins to unravel. Young Briony, who once had a crush on the handsome young man, witnesses two of their encounters. Wide-eyed and impressionable, she sees the agitation of lovers hot with anticipation and concludes it's harmful aggression. Lovemaking in her eyes becomes assault.

A note that should never have been sent confirms her direst imagination, and when she surprises cousin Lola (Juno Temple) coupling in the woods and the man runs off, she instantly concludes it was Robbie. In a fury of righteous ignorance, she makes public her accusation, and he is taken away in handcuffs.

Like the book, the film jumps four years to find the devastated young man now a soldier lost in France and fleeing with the rest of the British army toward the English Channel. Director Wright, cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, production designer Jacqueline Durran and editor Paul Tothill create astonishing sequences that depict the bungling of warfare, the randomness of death and the horror that results. Dario Marianelli's evocative score, with typewriter keys used as percussion, adds greatly to the film's emotional power.

The British army's remarkable retreat from Dunkirk has taken on a rosy hue over the decades, but "Atonement" reveals it as the hell it really was. A hell matched in England when the survivors show up at the hospital where the now 18-year-old Briony (Garai) is working as a nurse.

Tending to the brutally wounded and holding the hands of dying men serves only to amplify the plunging remorse that the young woman feels for destroying her sister's great love. The film's title derives from her wish to atone for her behavior and bring the lovers back together.

Garai shows extraordinary poise in these scenes, saying very little, as the director allows her formidable expressive powers to convey everything. Ronan is good, too, as the obsessed young Briony, and Vanessa Redgrave completes the trio with some typically concise and seemingly effortless heavy lifting in the film's shattering closing moments.

ATONEMENT

Focus Features

A Working Title Films production

Credits:

Director: Joe Wright

Screenwriter: Christopher Hampton

Based on the novel by: Ian McEwan

Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster

Executive producers: Lisa Chasin, Richard Eyre, Robert Fox, Debra Hayward

Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey

Production designer: Sarah Greenwood

Music: Dario Marianelli

Costume designer: Jacqueline Durran

Editor: Paul Tothill

Cast:

Cecilia Tallis: Keira Knightley

Robbie Turner: James McAvoy

Briony at 18: Romola Garai

Grace Turner: Brenda Blethyn

Older Briony: Vanessa Redgrave

Briony at 13: Saoirse Ronan

Leon Tallis: Patrick Kennedy

Paul Marshall: Benedict Cumberbatch

Lola: Juno Temple

Police Inspector: Peter Wight

Emily Tallis: Harriet Walter

Fiona MacGuire: Michelle Duncan

Nurse Drummond: Gina McKee

Tommy Nettle: Daniel Mays

Frank Mace: Nonso Anozie

Pierrot: Felix von Simson

Running time -- 130 minutes

MPAA rating: R...

This review was written for the festival review of "Atonement".Venice International Film Festival

VENICE, Italy -- "Atonement", Ian McEwan's best-selling novel of love thwarted by juvenile fantasy, has been rendered on screen so well by director Joe Wright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton that it ranks with the best novel adaptations of recent times. It was the opening film in competition at the Venice International Film Festival.

With compelling and charismatic performances by Keira Knightley and James McAvoy as the lovers, and a stunning contribution from Romola Garai as their remorseful nemesis, the film goes directly to "The English Patient" territory and might also expect rapturous audiences and major awards.

Like that film, "Atonement" deals with lovers parted by pitiless fate and promising to come back to each other in a time of war. It captures impeccably three periods of English life -- before, during and after World War II -- in its parallel stories of aching romance and deepest regret.

Wright and Hampton keep the structure of McEwan's novel so that the story's revelations are well hidden though foreshadowed and revisited cinematically in very clever ways. The first section deals with mid-1930s life in the Tallis family, minor-league aristocrats who bask in lazy wealth at their bucolic pile in the countryside. Father is seldom at home, but mother (Harriet Walter) maintains strict upper-middle-class standards, tolerant of Cecilia (Knightley), with her college degree, and indulgent toward 13-year-old Briony (Saoirse Ronan), who often disappears into her own fantasies.

It's a family weekend, and first-born Leon Tallis (Patrick Kennedy) has brought his friend Paul Benedict Cumberbatch), a wealthy chocolate manufacturer, to dinner. Also invited is the son of the family housekeeper (Brenda Blethyn), a young man named Robbie Turner (McAvoy), whose Cambridge education has been paid for by Tallis senior.

It is when Cecilia and Robbie discover and act on the passionate love that underpins their friendship that everything begins to unravel. Young Briony, who once had a crush on the handsome young man, witnesses two of their encounters. Wide-eyed and impressionable, she sees the agitation of lovers hot with anticipation and concludes it's harmful aggression. Lovemaking in her eyes becomes assault.

A note that should never have been sent confirms her direst imagination, and when she surprises cousin Lola (Juno Temple) coupling in the woods and the man runs off, she instantly concludes it was Robbie. In a fury of righteous ignorance, she makes public her accusation, and he is taken away in handcuffs.

Like the book, the film jumps four years to find the devastated young man now a soldier lost in France and fleeing with the rest of the British army toward the English Channel. Director Wright, cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, production designer Jacqueline Durran and editor Paul Tothill create astonishing sequences that depict the bungling of warfare, the randomness of death and the horror that results. Dario Marianelli's evocative score, with typewriter keys used as percussion, adds greatly to the film's emotional power.

The British army's remarkable retreat from Dunkirk has taken on a rosy hue over the decades, but "Atonement" reveals it as the hell it really was. A hell matched in England when the survivors show up at the hospital where the now 18-year-old Briony (Garai) is working as a nurse.

Tending to the brutally wounded and holding the hands of dying men serves only to amplify the plunging remorse that the young woman feels for destroying her sister's great love. The film's title derives from her wish to atone for her behavior and bring the lovers back together.

Garai shows extraordinary poise in these scenes, saying very little, as the director allows her formidable expressive powers to convey everything. Ronan is good, too, as the obsessed young Briony, and Vanessa Redgrave completes the trio with some typically concise and seemingly effortless heavy lifting in the film's shattering closing moments.

ATONEMENT

Focus Features

A Working Title Films production

Credits:

Director: Joe Wright

Screenwriter: Christopher Hampton

Based on the novel by: Ian McEwan

Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster

Executive producers: Lisa Chasin, Richard Eyre, Robert Fox, Debra Hayward

Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey

Production designer: Sarah Greenwood

Music: Dario Marianelli

Costume designer: Jacqueline Durran

Editor: Paul Tothill

Cast:

Cecilia Tallis: Keira Knightley

Robbie Turner: James McAvoy

Briony at 18: Romola Garai

Grace Turner: Brenda Blethyn

Older Briony: Vanessa Redgrave

Briony at 13: Saoirse Ronan

Leon Tallis: Patrick Kennedy

Paul Marshall: Benedict Cumberbatch

Lola: Juno Temple

Police Inspector: Peter Wight

Emily Tallis: Harriet Walter

Fiona MacGuire: Michelle Duncan

Nurse Drummond: Gina McKee

Tommy Nettle: Daniel Mays

Frank Mace: Nonso Anozie

Pierrot: Felix von Simson

Running time -- 130 minutes

MPAA rating: R...

Venice International Film Festival

VENICE, Italy -- "Atonement", Ian McEwan's best-selling novel of love thwarted by juvenile fantasy, has been rendered on screen so well by director Joe Wright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton that it ranks with the best novel adaptations of recent times. It was the opening film in competition at the Venice International Film Festival.

With compelling and charismatic performances by Keira Knightley and James McAvoy as the lovers, and a stunning contribution from Romola Garai as their remorseful nemesis, the film goes directly to "The English Patient" territory and might also expect rapturous audiences and major awards.

Like that film, "Atonement" deals with lovers parted by pitiless fate and promising to come back to each other in a time of war. It captures impeccably three periods of English life -- before, during and after World War II -- in its parallel stories of aching romance and deepest regret.

Wright and Hampton keep the structure of McEwan's novel so that the story's revelations are well hidden though foreshadowed and revisited cinematically in very clever ways. The first section deals with mid-1930s life in the Tallis family, minor-league aristocrats who bask in lazy wealth at their bucolic pile in the countryside. Father is seldom at home, but mother (Harriet Walter) maintains strict upper-middle-class standards, tolerant of Cecilia (Knightley), with her college degree, and indulgent toward 13-year-old Briony (Saoirse Ronan), who often disappears into her own fantasies.

It's a family weekend, and first-born Leon Tallis (Patrick Kennedy) has brought his friend Paul Benedict Cumberbatch), a wealthy chocolate manufacturer, to dinner. Also invited is the son of the family housekeeper (Brenda Blethyn), a young man named Robbie Turner (McAvoy), whose Cambridge education has been paid for by Tallis senior.

It is when Cecilia and Robbie discover and act on the passionate love that underpins their friendship that everything begins to unravel. Young Briony, who once had a crush on the handsome young man, witnesses two of their encounters. Wide-eyed and impressionable, she sees the agitation of lovers hot with anticipation and concludes it's harmful aggression. Lovemaking in her eyes becomes assault.

A note that should never have been sent confirms her direst imagination, and when she surprises cousin Lola (Juno Temple) coupling in the woods and the man runs off, she instantly concludes it was Robbie. In a fury of righteous ignorance, she makes public her accusation, and he is taken away in handcuffs.

Like the book, the film jumps four years to find the devastated young man now a soldier lost in France and fleeing with the rest of the British army toward the English Channel. Director Wright, cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, production designer Jacqueline Durran and editor Paul Tothill create astonishing sequences that depict the bungling of warfare, the randomness of death and the horror that results. Dario Marianelli's evocative score, with typewriter keys used as percussion, adds greatly to the film's emotional power.

The British army's remarkable retreat from Dunkirk has taken on a rosy hue over the decades, but "Atonement" reveals it as the hell it really was. A hell matched in England when the survivors show up at the hospital where the now 18-year-old Briony (Garai) is working as a nurse.

Tending to the brutally wounded and holding the hands of dying men serves only to amplify the plunging remorse that the young woman feels for destroying her sister's great love. The film's title derives from her wish to atone for her behavior and bring the lovers back together.

Garai shows extraordinary poise in these scenes, saying very little, as the director allows her formidable expressive powers to convey everything. Ronan is good, too, as the obsessed young Briony, and Vanessa Redgrave completes the trio with some typically concise and seemingly effortless heavy lifting in the film's shattering closing moments.

ATONEMENT

Focus Features

A Working Title Films production

Credits:

Director: Joe Wright

Screenwriter: Christopher Hampton

Based on the novel by: Ian McEwan

Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster

Executive producers: Lisa Chasin, Richard Eyre, Robert Fox, Debra Hayward

Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey

Production designer: Sarah Greenwood

Music: Dario Marianelli

Costume designer: Jacqueline Durran

Editor: Paul Tothill

Cast:

Cecilia Tallis: Keira Knightley

Robbie Turner: James McAvoy

Briony at 18: Romola Garai

Grace Turner: Brenda Blethyn

Older Briony: Vanessa Redgrave

Briony at 13: Saoirse Ronan

Leon Tallis: Patrick Kennedy

Paul Marshall: Benedict Cumberbatch

Lola: Juno Temple

Police Inspector: Peter Wight

Emily Tallis: Harriet Walter

Fiona MacGuire: Michelle Duncan

Nurse Drummond: Gina McKee

Tommy Nettle: Daniel Mays

Frank Mace: Nonso Anozie

Pierrot: Felix von Simson

Running time -- 130 minutes

MPAA rating: R...