Little toy jungle animals are lined up on the rug. Typewriter keys bang like gunshots. Briony (Saoirse Ronan) is writing a play called “The Trials of Arabella.” It is 1935 England, a dream of a summer afternoon on a sleepy but grand estate and Briony is the much-loved youngest daughter of the house. It feels like the biggest problem she will ever have is whether her young visitors will cooperate in putting on the play. She is already trying to impose her story on people. Briony is more imaginative than perceptive and that will lead to terrible betrayal, when the story she imposes is fictional but its consequences are very real.

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