A little girl in the province of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea becomes mesmerized by the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, which is being read at school by the only white man in the village. This occurs at the same time that a war is raging in the region. The island of Bougainville was completely dismantled in 1991 as a result of a conflict that was started over a copper mine in the South Pacific. Matilda, who is fourteen years old, lives in a very small village. The reclusive "Popeye," played by Hugh Laurie, gives the youngsters in the community a copy of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens so that they can leave. On the other hand, fiction may have potentially lethal repercussions on an island that is currently at war.