Vanessa Redgrave plays an upper-class London lady with a wonderful life. She has friends, lovers, she shops, she goes to the theatre and has a fulfilling job. Yet when we first see her, she is curled up on a toilet floor in anguish. This film is the tale of her gradual realisation that all is not quite right with the world. Starting with a conversation with a diplomat from an unnamed foreign country, she begins to hear the voices of dissent from all she meets. After someone leaves a copy of Das Kapital on her doorstep, she decides to visit the diplomat's country, where encounters with a foreign correspondent (Michael Moore in a rare fictional role) and a freedom fighter (Angelina Jolie) start to give her the perspective that somehow a privileged upbringing in a literate society has failed to. As she tries to establish her place in the system that keeps the poor oppressed, she realises her own guilt, and by extension, the audience's. Thought-provoking stuff. NS
