Sense and Sensibility/Atonement

Double-bill of period dramas. In 'Sense and Sensibility' (1995), Emma Thompson stars in and provides the screenplay for this adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel.

Thompson plays Elinor, the eldest of sisters who are reduced in means when their father dies and his estate passes on to his son from his first marriage.

They are soon accepted into their new society, each finding romance, but with some pain along the way.

In 'Atonement' (2007), on the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) sees her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house.

Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper's son Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), a childhood friend who, along with Briony's sister, has recently graduated from Cambridge.

By the end of that day the lives of all three have been changed forever.

Robbie and Cecilia have crossed a boundary they had never before dared to approach and have become victims of the younger girl's scheming imagination - and Briony has committed a dreadful crime, the guilt for which will colour her entire life.

Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave co-star as Briony as she grows older.