Follows two British policemen, Thomas Wilkin (Douglas Booth) and Geoffrey Morton (Harry Melling), as they hunt down charismatic poet and Zionist independence fighter Avraham Stern (Aury Alby), who was plotting to oust the British authorities. Meanwhile, Thomas falls in love with beautiful Israeli Shoshana (Irina Starshenbaum).
The film features a whirlwind romance, intrigue, betrayal, chases and historic events. Michael Witterbottom (24 Hour Party People) directs this romantic drama with a political thriller background, which tells the story of Shoshana Borochovm, daughter of one of the founders of Socialist Zionism and a British police superintendent named Thomas Wilkin. Giving a detailed description of the Irgun, it was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated during the British Mandate of Palestine, between 1931 and 1948. It was established as a militant branch of the Haganah ("The Defense"). The Irgun has been considered a terrorist organization. The Irgun was the predecessor of the nationalist political party Herut ("Freedom"), which gave rise to the current Likud party.
Based on historical events when Palestine was a quiet province of the Ottoman Empire, where there was a Jewish community. At the end of the 19th century, the trickle of Jews began due to the diaspora, all of them travelling to Palestine determined to build their country in the Promised Land and under the Balfour Declaration. After the end of the First World War and the conclusion of the Treaty of Versailles, control of Palestine was granted under a Mandate to Great Britain, and the trickle of Israeli immigrants became a flood, and by 1936, at the beginning of the Arab revolt, there were already more than half a million Jews in Palestine. This is the volatile context in which this story moves, which also functions as a portrait of why and how the current conflicts in the Middle East began. And adding specific historical references on screen, such as: On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was founded. The apartment where Avraham Stern lived is now a museum in his honor. Geoffrey Morton successfully brought several libel suits against accusations of having murdered Stern, after Palestine he served in Trinidad and Africa. Shoshana Borochov lived in Tel Aviv until her death at the age of 93 in 2005.
The film was well directed by Michael Winterbottom. His films often deal with social and/or political issues such as Go Now (1995), Welcome to Sarajevo (1997), Wonderland (1999), In This World (2002) or This Shoshana (2023). His films often make references, visual and/or spoken, to the works of Werner Herzog. Due to the improvisational element of much of his work, his films often use hand-held - sometimes digital - photography with crudely edited jumps between scenes and locations, e.g.: Butterfly Kiss (1995), Wonderland (1999), With or Without You (1999), The Claim (2000), 24 Hour Party People (2002), In This World (2002), 9 Songs (2004). He made his directorial debut with two documentaries about Ingmar Bergman. His production of Love Lies Bleeding won the Silver Prize at the 1993 New York Television Festival and the 4-part series 'Family' has collected numerous awards at film and television festivals around the world. He also directed the opening story for the first series of the multi-award-winning Cracker. Winterbottom has made all kinds of genres: drama (Wonderland), period films (Jude), war (Welcome to Sarajevo), western (The Claim), musical comedy (24 Hours Party), documentary fiction (In This World), erotica (9 Songs), even science fiction (Code 46) and film noir (The Killer Inside Me). Shoshana's score: 6.5/10. Good and interesting movie. Worth watching.
