Synopsis: Charmaine the Shield

SYNOPSIS:

Charmaine’s life, in a lower-middle class suburb somewhere in Ireland, revolves around her chores. She is either washing, ironing, cleaning, cooking or shopping. Along with her neglectful husband, William (a mechanic with his own small business), Charmaine is raising four children, two at work, and two at high school. Their eldest child is already a successful solicitor in London.

As families often do, this family has vastly underestimated the wife’s/mother’s role as provider, peacemaker and general facilitator of comfort. Charmaine has all-but become a figure of ridicule, and her needs are never considered, let alone addressed. Her services are taken for granted, her intelligence is not respected, and her morals are considered quaint and out of date.

In January, 2003, when the second Iraq crisis materializes upon the family’s TV, (the family dines in front of the TV, where Charmaine waits upon them) it is universally assumed Charmaine’s take on the complex international issues is superficial and naïve.

A prisoner of her ironing board during long days home alone, though, Charmaine watches the BBC’s extended news articles on the war, particularly those involving Human Shields. She becomes impressed with the leader of an English contingent of Shields, Amanda Peterson.

During a shopping incident, Charmaine meets and gets to know a Human Shield campaigner. When she announces to her family she intends to go to Iraq to become a Shield her declaration is dismissed under a hail of derisive laughter. It is only when her husband, William, realizes she is actually serious in her intention, that the true implications of her impending absence is realized. Following an all-out campaign to prevent her departure, the family is left faces-pressed-to-the-glass as Charmaine out-maneuvers them and flies out.

What follows for Charmaine in Iraq is the inevitable clash of idealism and harsh reality. But the same depth of character that allowed her to become a selfless homemaker and wife, a devoted mother, confidant and comforter to her children, to never complain nor let those under her care come to harm, is the very thing that sees this unassuming woman return home to a hero’s welcome.