Helen Mirren

When British military commander Col. Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) is tasked with gathering credible intelligence concerning the whereabouts of a suspected terrorist in advance of a pending raid on a Kenyan radical safe house, the intent is to create conditions enabling the insurgent’s capture. The person in question, Susan Danford (Lex King), a radicalized British citizen, is believed to have recently arrived in Nairobi to collaborate with Somali extremists living there, perhaps to aid in carrying out a terrorist attack.

In 1947, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was one of the most acclaimed and best paid scribes in Hollywood, having achieved success with the scripts for such films as “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” (1944) and the Oscar-nominated “Kitty Foyle” (1940).

At the age of 81, many of us might be content to settle in and get comfortable for the remaining days of our lives. But not Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren). Despite her advancing age, she embarked on one of the most arduous, yet satisfying, undertakings of her life.

When we embark on the journeys of our lives, we seldom know what awaits us. Yet, if we leave ourselves open to the range of possible experiences available, we enable the potential for a wealth of rewarding and wondrous opportunities for creative fulfillment, many of which are unexpected yet ever so satisfying. Such are the sorts of personal odysseys profiled in the entertaining new comedy-drama, “The Hundred-Foot Journey.”