Have watched this several times on cable, had never heard of it and was pleasantly surprised. Sarah Polley is a very good and appealing actor and her character in this movie is fascinating. The movie is shocking at first by attacking the closed mindedness of the liberal orthodoxy of thought at universities today and the oppurtunists that use charges of racism to squelch dissent. Catherine Chapman thinks and says many things early in the movie that many people think secretly but are afraid to say for being branded, this is highly unusual for any film these days to face reality head on like this.
Unfortunately, this courage dwindles at the end and the producers of the movie play to the grandstand like all mainstream movies do and create cartoonish, reprehensible, easy to hate skinhead nazis as bad guys and Catherine repents. How disappointing, I wish the movie had continued to explore the gray areas of racial politics, where what is 'right' is not so clear as when nazis are involved, but rather there are intelligent people who have a legitimate argument against an entrenched political correctness and have a right to be heard without fear of being treated like pariahs by the establishment.
Unfortunately, this courage dwindles at the end and the producers of the movie play to the grandstand like all mainstream movies do and create cartoonish, reprehensible, easy to hate skinhead nazis as bad guys and Catherine repents. How disappointing, I wish the movie had continued to explore the gray areas of racial politics, where what is 'right' is not so clear as when nazis are involved, but rather there are intelligent people who have a legitimate argument against an entrenched political correctness and have a right to be heard without fear of being treated like pariahs by the establishment.