Double: An Education / Atonement Carey Mulligan 2011 DVD Top-quality

A double-bill of acclaimed British dramas. In ‘Atonement’ (2007), on the hottest day of the summer of 1935, 13-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. In ‘An Education’ (2009), based on the memoirs of journalist Lynn Barber, Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is an intelligent young woman on the brink of her 17th birthday, destined for a promising yet somewhat narrow future at Oxford University and beyond. Longing for romance and sophistication to inject some excitement into her humdrum schoolgirl existence, she finds herself caught in a whirlwind romance with the mysterious and much older playboy David (Peter Sarsgaard). Mulligan won Best Actress at the 2010 BAFTA Awards for her performance, while the ensemble supporting cast includes Alfred Molina, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike and Emma Thompson.