This brilliantly portrayed and wonderfully shot drama is set in the post-Apartheid South Africa of 2000 against the backdrop of the Truth and Reconciliation hearings. They were the legal process that the new government brought in to avoid civil war by allowing ex-members of Apartheid to confess their past crimes and so be exonerated from prosecution, a process dreamt up to seek forgiveness not retaliation from a growing nation. Double Oscar-winner Hilary Swank plays a lawyer returning to her home town (although now living in New York, she seems to have lost all trace of the thick South African accent all the other whites have in the film) to represent black politician and former ANC activist Chiwetel Ejiofor whose career is under threat by the white security officer (Jamie Bartlett) calling for amnesty against his past crimes. But during his hearing, past truths and lies come to the fore with harrowing results. At times shocking, this legal drama remains gripping throughout.

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