City of God director Fernando Meirelles brings his distinctive visual style to this moving political thriller, based on the novel by John le Carré. Ralph Fiennes plays Justin Quayle, a Foreign Office diplomat in Kenya, whose activist wife Tessa (a compelling Rachel Weisz, winner of the film's only Oscar) is found murdered. The story is then played out in a series of flashbacks, as Justin - a normally passive man who puts more effort into nurturing his plants than his marriage - tries to understand his wife's motives and the events that led to her death. Justin's gardening works well as a powerful metaphor for the apathy of the rich West to the world's poor, as Meirelles examines life in some of Kenya's most impoverished communities. Drug company profiteering, conspiracy and murder are at the heart of this film, but it's also a touching love story that will break your heart.

Justin Quayle is a low-level British diplomat who has always gone about his work very quietly, not causing any problems. But after his radical wife Tessa is killed he becomes determined to find out why, thrusting himself into the middle of a very dangerous conspiracy.