This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.