Atonement might be one of the most finely crafted movies I have seen in the last six months.

From start to finish, the creators of the film have rendered the landscape, the characters, the music and the story to a degree both opulent and easily approachable. Atonement's first scenes in and around the English manor house, almost drip off the screen under the weight of summer lust and looming tragedy.

The tale of how one lie has disastrous and far-reaching consequences, the movie opens on an idyllic 1930s English summer scene and spans WWII. The budding romance between Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) is tragically cut short when Cecilia's sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan) makes a shocking (and false) accusation. Briony spends the rest of the movie (and her life) coming to terms with the consequences of her actions.

The ominous score, with the aid of a typewriter as percussion (the movie was adapted from a bestselling book), only heightens the feeling that the characters are trapped in a world of delicious foreboding. They are swept along in the scope of the grand narrative, which covers almost a half-century in the life of one girl (in three distinct parts), but never seems like mere cut-outs.

I'm not really much of a fan of Knightley, but she gives a performance that at least does not detract from the much stronger ones from McAvoy and Ronan. McAvoy especially deserves the praise he has received for a restrained performance that shows most completely his character's disgust for all the factors (class, war, societal humiliation) that get in the way of the true expression of his love.

The late cameo from Vanessa Redgrave, one of the grand old dames of British cinema, dramatically changes the scope of the story and helps to create an ending both unexpected and entirely fitting to the emotions evoked in the previous two hours.

It's a conclusion that, like the rest of the movie, does not feel forced or sentimental or pretentious. Atonement runs on richly evoked scenery and deeply felt emotion, but unlike many of its genre, feels entirely real and entertaining while doing it.