Summary

The film is based on the true life story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia who set fire to her husband after years of abuse. The film follows her transformation from weak victim to independent woman in prison before she was freed by a group of women's rights activists appalled by her unjust sentence. In 1984, Kiranjit Ahluwalia was sentenced by the British High Court to life in prison for the murder of her husband. That should have been the end of the story, but it was only the beginning. Kiran (Aishwarya Rai) was a nineteen-year-old girl living with her domineering sisters and their husbands in a small village in Punjab, India. Kiran's head is filled with dreams of attending university, traveling, seeing the world...marriage is the last thing on her mind. That is, until Deepak (Naveen Andrews) arrives. A friend of the family, he is handsome, charming, and best of all... unmarried! After a whirlwind courtship, they marry and relocate to Deepak's home in a suburb of London. But what started as a storybook romance soon descends into a terrifying nightmare. Cut off from her family and friends back home, Kiran suffers a 10-year campaign of abuse (both physical and mental) at the hands of the man she loves, until the balmy summer night when she decides to strike back. A splash of petrol on his sleeping figure, a burning candle, and her nightmare is finally over... Or so she believes. Unable to claim self defense due to the nature of her crime, she is convicted of murder, and sent to serve a life sentence behind the walls of Mullwood Hall Prison. She is befriended by Ronnie (Miranda Richardson), another women jailed for striking back at her husband. Here, behind these walls, Kiran experiences true freedom for the first time in her young life.