Indian-born, American-educated director Radha Bharadwaj based her allegorical thriller on the work of her husband with Amnesty International. The story concerns The Woman (
Madeleine Stowe), a children's book writer who, in an unspecified country, is abducted from her bed in the middle of the night and imprisoned for writing subversive literature. She declares her books to be pure fantasies, but her well-dressed inquisitor The Man (
Alan Rickman) sees the books as allegorical attacks on the State. In the form of a long dialogue between The Man and The Woman, The Man, through psychological and physical torture, attempts to get The Woman to confess. But The Woman endures, refusing to buckle under to The Man's relentless interrogation. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide