In this fictionalized account of the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst, Sarah Gadon plays Pauline, an heiress who’s had her head turned by the revolutionary thinking of the radicalized activists (John Gallagher Jr., radiating menace, and Lola Kirke) who’ve abducted her. Charged with minding the captive-turned-convert and keeping her more volatile comrades in check and off the Feds’ radar is Jenny (Hong Chau), a fugitive herself for her role in bombing a draft office while protesting the Vietnam War. The already conflicted Jenny – a pacifist driven to violence; an Asian-American left to feel an outsider in her own country – soon finds herself in an entangled relationship with Pauline, adding further fuel to their hideout’s already combustible atmosphere.

If Quentin Tarantino used the late 60s as a personal playground for his pop-culture obsessions in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, writer-director Semi Chellas (working from Susan Choi’s Pulitzer-shortlisted novel of the same name) uses her Mad Men-honed eye for period detail and deep understanding of the era’s radical ideologies to plunge us into a maelstrom of passion, betrayal, and redemption.