AllMovie

An eighteenth century female convict arrested for petty theft and sentenced to seven years in Botany Bay stages the only successful escape from the Australian penal colony ever recorded in an inspirational tale of survival and perseverance starring Ramola Garai, Jack Davenport, and Sam Neill. The year is 1788, and starving twenty-one year old Mary Bryant has been convicted of thievery in a Cornwall court. Subsequently sentenced, along with hundreds of hardened criminals, to an extended stay in the punishing penal colony of Botany Bay, Mary sets sail on the prison ship that will take two-hundred-and-fifty-one days to reach its bleak destination. During that time, Mary has a child with fellow inmate William Bryant - a fisherman and drug dealer who has also been sentenced to an extended stay on Botany Bay. Soon after arriving at their destination Mary and William have another child while lamenting their future in such a punishing landscape.