The Sleeping Dictionary

This tony love story with a Masterpiece Theater vibe fashion lays bare the sexual hypocrisy that underlies an English colony in 1936 Malaysia. British idealist John Truscott (Hugh Dancy) is looking forward to his three-year supervisory post in far-off Sarawak. The district governor, Henry Bullard (Bob Hoskins), and his wife, Aggie (Brenda Blethyn), introduce the newcomer to tribal lore and the Empire’s way of doing things. But the priggish John alienates the native plantation workers at his British-run long house with his sanctimonious airs and despite his eagerness to follow his late father's program for educating "primitive people," John proves an ineffecti...