Plot summary

New Delhi, India, March 1947. The huge and stately Viceroy's Palace is like a beehive. Its 500 employees are busy preparing the coming of Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (Hugh Bonneville), who has just been appointed new (and last) Viceroy of India by Prime Minister Clement Attlee. Mountbatten, whose difficult task consists of overseeing the transition of British India to independence, arrives at the Palace, accompanied by Edwina (Gillian Anderson), his liberal-minded wife and Pamela (Lily Travers), his 18-year-old daughter. Meanwhile, in the staff quarters, a love story is born between Jeet Kumar (Manish Dayal), a Hindu, and Aalia Noor (Huma Qureshi), a Muslim beauty. Matters will prove to be extremely difficult on the geopolitical and personal level.—Guy Bellinger