Agnieszka Holland's thriller, set on the eve of world WWII, sees Hitler's rise to power and Stalin s Soviet propaganda machine pushing their utopia to the Western world. Meanwhile, an ambitious young journalist, Gareth Jones (Norton) travels to Moscow to uncover the truth behind the propaganda, but then gets a tip that could expose an international conspiracy, one that could cost him and his informant their lives. Jones goes on a life-or-death journey to uncover the truth behind the facade that would later inspire George Orwell s seminal book Animal Farm.