Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'm glad I watched this, but it was definitely emotional. If you have a soft spot for young idealists, you'll find yourself fighting different emotions watching this. At times you'll be wishing she would compromise her ideals to make life easier on herself. You'll dread the impending consequences you'll foresee. At other times you'll be proud of her for holding herself to her values, even if those values differ from what her society at that time would have considered "traditional" values. She was her own person, and it cost her. Who can say if what was gained by doing it was worth what it cost her. At least now we know her story. I read recently of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. There was this program called 1000 Flowers Blooming under which the Chinese government encouraged dissenters to openly express their disagreement with government policies. They wrote articles, gave lectures, even poetry and other art forms expressed this questioning of the status quo the government said was essential for the growth of a strong nation. This went on for several years. Then came the purge. Suddenly the government started locking up dissidents, imprisoning, brainwashing and executing them. Their own words were used against them from within the period of open dissent. This is an important reminder that by the time you know you need to protect your privacy it is too late. You can only protect your privacy when you have no reason to. What is legal at one point can be illegal at another. What is protected by the 1st Amendment with one FBI policy becomes reason to psychologically torture and socially smear an American speaking freely and giving to social causes she believes in under another FBI head. Freedom is not ceded. It is claimed and then defended, or lost. This movie is a story of a different time, but how different are times really? Doesn't history rhyme?