If they took the sociopolitical idealism out of the film...

If they took it out, they would have needed another device to generate the complex tension between Bill and Kelly, but Bill is excellent enough to have made it work no matter what. It would have been at its heart exactly what it was: a thoughtful and affecting film on more than one level.

If they'd taken that out, they'd have had a cookie-cutter film (although the actors in question would surely have been engaging) that would have been nothing-new-under-the-sun really ... Instead, they went for making a film about something significant and that might in passing raise the consciousnesses of viewers about a reality in the world they are likely oblivious to ... to us that made the film refreshing and as boldly uncensored as Gina was ... all within what is still a Hollywood-style love story and plot...