Bodily Harm

Rennie Wilford, a lifestyle journalist from Toronto, returns to her apartment the day after her boyfriend, Jake, has moved out. She finds the door broken open and two policemen inside. They explain that an intruder, who had been waiting for her, fled when they arrived. In her bedroom, they show her a length of rope coiled on the quilt, implying the man had violent intentions. The police question her personal life, suggesting her single status might have made her a target.

The narrative shifts to the present, where Rennie is on a flight to the Caribbean island of St. Antoine. She has taken an assignment from Visor magazine to write a travel piece as a way to escape her life, which has been destabilized by the break-in and a recent partial mastectomy for breast cancer. She reflects on her repressive upbringing in Griswold, Ontario, a town whose values she has spent her adult life trying to reject. A flashback reveals the night before her surgery, when a strained dinner with Jake culminated in an aggressive, painful sexual encounter in which she faked an orgasm.

On the small plane from Barbados to St. Antoine, Rennie sits next to Dr. Minnow, a former government minister who speaks cynically about the island's corruption, recounting how Canadian hurricane relief was misappropriated by local officials. Another flashback details Rennie's post-surgery recovery, during which she developed an obsessive, clichéd infatuation with her surgeon, Daniel, while her relationship with a restless Jake deteriorated. Upon arriving at St. Antoine, Rennie is questioned by an aggressive immigration officer and has a brief encounter with an elderly woman named Elva, who is a supporter of a political candidate named Prince. Rennie takes a taxi to her budget hotel, the Sunset Inn. That evening, she meets Paul, an American who lives on a boat and states he was an “adviser” in Vietnam. Her first night is sleepless, disturbed by the heat and the sounds of what she first mistakes for agony, but then recognizes as sex, from the next room.

In a flashback, Rennie recalls her childhood in Griswold, dominated by her stern grandmother and self-sacrificing mother, and her grandmother’s subsequent descent into dementia. Back in the present, Rennie wakes at the Sunset Inn, thinking about her cancer diagnosis and her decision to flee Toronto to avoid follow-up tests. She explores the main town, Queenstown, and visits a church. While walking back, she is pursued by a deaf and dumb man, and she panics, running into a crowded marketplace. Paul appears and explains the man only wanted to shake her hand for good luck. At a café, a man named Marsden confronts Rennie, telling her she is not wanted. Paul explains that Marsden is the campaign manager for Prince, an opposition political candidate. A small riot breaks out during a rally for the incumbent, Ellis, and Paul escorts Rennie back to her hotel.

Later, Rennie takes a glass-bottom boat tour and meets Lora, a brash fellow Canadian. Lora persuades Rennie to visit the more upscale Driftwood hotel, where she tries to sell Rennie marijuana. Rennie refuses to buy it, but Lora later gives her several joints as a "gift." Lora then asks Rennie for a favor: to pick up a box of heart medicine for Prince's grandmother, Elva, at the airport the next day. Lora claims she must rush to the neighboring island of Ste. Agathe because Elva is ill. Paul appears at the hotel and gives Rennie a ride back in his jeep. He kisses her, but she refuses to let him into her room. Alone, she smokes some of the marijuana and reflects on her relationship with Jake, his sexual fantasies, and his attempts to "package" her into his ideal woman.

The next morning, Rennie goes to the airport. The customs official gives her a large, heavy, sealed box, not the small parcel of medicine she expected. She struggles to get it back to the Sunset Inn and hides it under her bed. Dr. Minnow arrives to take her on a tour. He drives her to Fort Industry, a historic site now used as a prison and a refugee camp for hurricane victims. He shows her the squalid conditions and a dilapidated gallows, trying to persuade her to write an exposé on the government's corruption and the rigged election. Over lunch, he warns her that the CIA is active on the island and tells her Paul is a "salesman." Back at the hotel, the Englishwoman manager warns Rennie that Dr. Minnow "stirs people up for nothing." Rennie reads the pro-government newspaper, then recalls her frustrating, unconsummated relationship with her married doctor, Daniel.

In a flashback, Lora recounts her abusive childhood, which ended when she stabbed her sexually abusive stepfather with a can opener and ran away from home. In the present, Rennie decides she must deliver the box and takes the ferry to Ste. Agathe. Lora appears on the pier, claiming she missed the previous boat. Paul is also on board. Lora tells Rennie that Paul is "the connection" for the local drug trade. At Ste. Agathe, Elva meets them, takes the box, and walks away. Lora reports that the Lime Tree, the only hotel, is full. There, Dr. Minnow tells Rennie that Ellis has stolen the election by stuffing the voter lists with dead people. A commotion erupts: Prince has been beaten by police, and Elva was injured defending him. Paul appears and offers Rennie a place to stay at his house. A flashback shows Jake's final departure from the apartment.

In another flashback, Lora describes meeting Paul, working on his drug-smuggling boats, and leaving him for Prince. In the present, Rennie spends the night with Paul. The next day, she explores his house and finds an empty cardboard box identical to the one she delivered. Paul admits he suspected her of being a CIA agent and used her to pick up the box, which contained a machine gun. That evening, a political meeting is held at the house, and Dr. Minnow and Prince agree to form a coalition government. Later, Lora arrives in a panic with news that Dr. Minnow has been assassinated. At the wake, Marsden incites the crowd to revolution. Paul tries to escape the island with Rennie in a police launch, but they are captured at the pier by Marsden and his men. Paul accuses Marsden of being a government agent who orchestrated the assassination and the uprising. In the ensuing chaos, Paul and Rennie escape. Lora stays behind for Prince, not knowing he has already been killed.

Rennie arrives at St. Antoine at dawn, but the airport is closed due to a state of emergency. Back at the Sunset Inn, she is arrested on “suspicion.” She is put in a cell in Fort Industry with Lora, who was captured during the failed revolution. Lora explains that the police rounded up hundreds of people on Ste. Agathe. She also reveals that she has a deal with two of the guards, who were her accomplices in the drug trade. Through the cell window, Rennie witnesses guards torturing male prisoners, including the deaf and dumb man, by sadistically cutting their hair with a bayonet. Later, a new guard reveals to Lora that Prince is dead and that one of her guard contacts, Morton, has been lying to her to extort sexual favors. Enraged, Lora attacks Morton, who, with the other guard, beats her unconscious and throws her back into the cell.

The narrative projects into a hypothetical future in which Rennie is released after signing a form stating she witnessed no harm and meeting a Canadian official who asks her not to write about her imprisonment. The projection then shows Rennie tending to the brutalized Lora, holding her hand and trying to will her back to consciousness, before concluding with Rennie on a plane back to Toronto. She reflects on her experience, no longer a detached observer but a "reporter" who is "paying attention." She feels not exempt from the world's horrors but lucky to be alive, holding onto the sensation of Lora's hand in hers.