[Is a fiction film particularly well equipped to do the kind of work we usually associate with investigative or advocacy journalism?] No, I don't think it can be, especially if it has to serve a dramatic narrative, ... Everyone asks questions about the polemical side of the film, but for me it's also about a relationship between two people, their openness with each other, or their decision as a couple not to share, thinking they're respecting each other's privacy. People don't always tell each other what they need to know—not because they've got anything to hide, like a love affair, but because they don't want to invade. Our ability to be honest with each other, to say, I want this or I don't want that, it's all a distant cousin of what happens on the level of social policy, and it's who we are, isn't it? Politics starts in the bedroom. Ralph Fiennes