Having grown up under the guardianship of a celebrated Sufi master after being abandoned by her wayward hippie parents, Lilly (Dakota Fanning) finds herself in Ethiopia and in love during the final years of Haile Selassie’s reign. As revolutionary fervour erupts in violence, she ships to England, where her status as a white woman sees her favoured before black refugees, though her devout Muslim faith means she is still regarded an outsider. She contributes to building a growing community of migrants while searching for her lost love. A powerful adaptation of Camilla Gibb’s bestseller, Sweetness in the Belly is a sincere, brilliantly constructed period drama with emotional depth. MH