This Just In: Budget Travel's Blog

You can always trust us—because we never take freebies or accept any travel discounts.
Recent Posts
  • All Recent Posts
People Are Talking…
Affordable Europe
Conciergerie and River Seine
A special series of posts delivering money-saving travel tips.
Popular Authors
Sean O'Neill
Blog Editor
View author page
Erik Torkells
Editor in Chief
View author page
Kate Appleton
Editor Online
View author page
AddThis Feed Button
Movie Quest: Atonement
Posted by: Sean O'Neill, Thursday, Dec 6, 2007, 9:24 AM

Opening tomorrow in theaters nationwide, Atonement is a startlingly faithful adaptation of the 2002 best seller by Ian McEwan. Set in Britain before and during World War II, the movie traces how 13-year old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) disrupts the budding romance between her older sister Ceclia (Keira Knightley) and Robbie (James McAvoy) by accusing Robbie of a crime.

Here's the preview:

And here's how to re-create the movie's best moments:

MANOR HOUSE
Key interior and exterior scenes were shot at Stokesay Court, a late-Victorian mansion built in 1892 of honey-colored stone and English oak in South Shropshire, about 160 miles northwest of London. Hop a three-hour ride on National Rail to the market town of Ludlow (011-44/845-748-4950, nationalrail.co.uk, from $20 round trip). From there, it's a 15-minute and $10 cab ride. The owner of the private home, Caroline Magnus, now offers one-hour guided tours of all the rooms featured in the film, followed by coffee or tea in the dining room, and an opportunity to roam the grounds, which include the lake where Cecilia swam and the grottoes, woodlands, and pools that starred in the film. The filmmakers left many props, such as a fiberglass-and-foam "stone" statue of Triton that had been placed in the center of the fountain that was created over the existing fountain to make it deep enough for Cecilia to dive into. The fake fountain itself has since been removed. No minimum size for tour group at Stokesay Court, but most tours turn out to be with small groups of about 5 to 10 tourists. (011-44/158-485-6238, stokesaycourt.com; about $25 per person; by appointment only, usually on Sundays; no children under age 8).

HISTORIC SHORES
Near the film's climax, Robbie staggers among hundreds of British soldiers awaiting evacuation on the shores of Dunkirk, France. The five-and-a-half-minute continuous shot was filmed on Redcar Beach, which is a three-hour train ride northeast from London. National Rail offers daily service from London's Waterloo Station to Redcar (Central), a ten-minute walk to the beach and promenade (011-44/845-748-4950, nationalrail.co.uk, from $103 round trip). The French cinema that Robbie wanders through is Redcar's Regent Cinema, a red-roofed, wooden structure on the seaside promenade (011/44-164-248-2094; $7 for an adult ticket).

THE BLITZ
Cecilia takes cover in a Tube station during an air raid. At the Imperial War Museum London, visitors can step inside a reconstruction of a similar 1940s air-raid shelter (011-44/207-416-5320, iwm.org.uk, free).

THE RESCUE AT DUNKIRK
The film doesn't have time to offer historical context on how 338,000 British and French troops were evacuated at Dunkirk largely by hundreds of civilian fishing boats. For details, visit the Second World War galleries of the Imperial War Museum London. Among the relevant items on display are a 15-foot fishing boat that participated in the evacuation, a letter from a Captain in the Royal Navy describing events first-hand, and a German wound label attached to a casualty who was captured during the retreat. (011-44/207-416-5320, iwm.org.uk, free).

SLIDE SHOW We rounded up the year's most travel-inspiring flicks into a slide show, in which Bud Travel pops into the films in a Zelig-like way.

Darjeeling_Blog.jpg

RELATED See our Web roundup of the places where celebs hang out in L.A. and N.Y.C.

Reader Comments

Atonement was a pretty good flick; it looked and felt a lot like Pride and Prejudice… come to think of it, both movies have the same director, leading lady, both are based on books and both take place in England

Posted By patrick on March 26, 2008, 6:20 AM

Leave a Comment


(This is a moderated blog. Your comment will need to be approved by the site owner before it will appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)


We encourage users to analyze, comment on, and even challenge the articles, blogs, reviews, and multimedia features of BudgetTravel.com.

User reviews and comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions.

Get E-Newsletters
Subscribe to the magazine now!