New York in the war years. Engaging and warm, evocative of the pressures of women's war work in a male shipyard culture and one woman's struggle to realise her singular ambitions.Wanting to be part of the war effort, Anna Kerrigan has got herself work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, as a sorter of small parts for shipbuilding. But she longs to be a diver and don the impossibly heavy diving suit and helmet, sinking into the murky harbour water to undertake ship repairs. True to the times, all her efforts in this direction are blocked by male colleagues. Her free time is taken up with her severely disabled sister Lydia, and mother Agnes, a former Follies dancer, who now devotes her energies to Lydia. Meanwhile Italian mobster Dexter Styles, who is somehow connected with the disappearance of Anna's dad Eddie some years ago, is having trouble balancing the demands of his boss and his wife. Things get complicated when Anna and Dexter's paths cross in one of his uptown nightclubs. Unusual, evocative, we tend to forget that war-work went on in the heart of New York.
