Headey starred in "Game of Thrones," but also works with the International Rescue Committee as a human rights activist. She executive produced "The Flood," and it is clearly an issue important to her. Her performance is quiet and controlled. Her behavior in the interrogation is purposefully withdrawn and bureaucratic. No matter the painful story she hears, no matter the harrowing details, she sticks to her script. She refuses to make eye contact. This isn't a therapy session and she's not a social worker. She refuses to openly empathize, keeping her eyes down on the forms. But during the interrogation of Haile (Ivanno Jeremiah), a refugee from Eritrea who smuggled himself into England in the back of a truck, the cracks in her bureaucratic armor start to show. Haile's story gets to her.
The interrogation is the framing device, and the film constantly flashes back to show the events in question as Haile tells his story. There's a lot of unnecessary repetition in this approach: Haile shares the details, and then we see it all unfold. During his time in a refugee camp called the "Jungle," he meets a Pakistani couple, Faiz (Peter Singh) and his pregnant wife, Reema (Mandip Gill), who take him under their wing. Faiz has ideas about how to get to England. His wife has family there. It will be a tough journey, life-threatening, dangerous. They speak of the UK like it's the promised land.
The focus on Wendy's issues—she's in the aftermath of a bad divorce and her work is suffering—is misguided. Yes, everyone's life has its struggles, but in the face of what Haile has experienced, what Faiz and Reema have gone through, it's hard to get all worked up about a woman's divorce. It's clear the point being made: Bureaucrats are people too. People's personal lives affect their jobs. But Haile's journey has so much more weight and depth. You get all the way to England, risking your life all the way, experiencing horrors, and you arrive and you meet ... Wendy. Who won't look you in the eye. That's the real story.
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