Overview
Paradise Road is a 1997 film which tells the story of a group of American, English, Dutch and Australian women that are imprisoned in Sumatra. It had been led by Bruce Beresford and celebrities Glenn Close as beatific Adrienne Pargiter, Frances McDormand since the brash Dr. Verstak, Pauline Collins as missionary Margaret Drummond (according to missionary Margaret Dryburgh), Julianna Margulies as American socialite Topsy Merritt, Jennifer Ehle as British doyenne and model Rosemary Leighton Jones, Cate Blanchett as Australian nurse Susan McCarthy and Elizabeth Spriggs as dowager Imogene Roberts. Basing his film on real events, Bruce Beresford tells the story of a vocal orchestra created by the ladies in a Western P.O.W. camp, even a basic Australians' tale extolling women's capacity to survive hardship and atrocity through perseverance, solidarity and creativity.