"Julia" and "Lillian" have been best friends since childhood. Even as time has passed, the two have stayed in touch and remained affectionate. The former (Vanessa Redgrave) has found herself in Germany in the 1930s and is determined to do what she can to thwart the rise of the Nazis - or, at least, to help those in their sights to flee. To that end, she contacts her playwright buddy (Lillian Hellman, who wrote the screenplay based on her own book and played here by Jane Fonda) asking her if she could help move a rather large sum of money into the country for her to fund her ever more dangerous...