Amazing Grace (2006 film)

Amazing Grace is a 2006 AmericanBritish biographical drama film directed by Michael Apted, about the campaign against slave trade in the British Empire, led by William Wilberforce, who was responsible for steering antislave trade legislation through the British parliament. The title is a reference to the hymn Amazing Grace. The film also recounts the experiences of John Newton as a crewman on a slave ship and subsequent religious conversion, which inspired his writing of the poem later used in the hymn. Newton is portrayed as a major influence on Wilberforce and the abolition movement.

In 1796 William Wilberforce is severely ill and taking a recuperative holiday in Bath, Somerset, with his cousin, Henry Thornton. It is here that William is introduced to his future wife, Barbara Spooner. Although he initially resists any romantic overtures, she convinces him to relate the story of his career.The story flashes backyears to 1782, and William recounts the events that led him to where he is now. Beginning as a young, ambitious, and popular Member of Parliament MP, he experiences a religious enlightenment and aligns himself with the evangelical wing of the Church of England. William contemplates leaving politics to study theology, but is persuaded by his friends William Pitt, Thomas Clarkson, Hannah More, and Olaudah Equiano that he will be more effective doing the work of God by taking on the unpopular and dangerous issue of the abolition of the British slave trade. His conviction in the cause deepens following a meeting with his former mentor John Newton introduced sweeping a church floor dressed in sackcloth who is said to live in the company of 20,000 ghosts... slaves. As a former slave ship captain turned Christian, he deeply regrets his past life and the effects on his fellow man. Newton urges William to take up the cause. ........

Source: Wikipedia