Movie Spoilers Follow

Atonement raises very interesting questions--questions regarding the relationship between art and life and the role of truth and hope in art. Ought art portray life as it is or should it show us an ideal toward which we can then aspire? Interestingly, the film does both of these for us, implying that art, as a whole, ought to do the same.

There are also interesting references to naming in the film: When Briony becomes a nun, she takes a new name, but in the process of relating to the wounded French soldier, she must admit her real name, for which she gets in trouble with the nuns, but which also frees her to tell the truth.