Patricia Highsmith's psychological thriller, updated and translated from its Vietnam-era American setting to contemporary Berlin, is the basis for this fascinating account of a woman journalist's gradual retreat into the fantasy world she creates at home in her diary. Edith Baumeister--portrayed by Angela Winkler, who is best known here for her starring role in Margarethe von Trotta's The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum and Sheer Madness--is the dedicated editor of the left-wing journal Signal. This is her weapon against the injustices of the world. At home, where her husband has moved out on her, her son is evolving from a teenage drop-out to a full-fledged alcoholic, and she is left to nurse an aging uncle, Edith's weapon is her imagination. As she slips more and more into the cheerful world she has invented in her diary, her son (long since withdrawn from “normality” himself) tries to preserve her from the waiting van of the psychological authorities. Well crafted by writer-director Hans W. Geissendörfer, Edith's Diary confirms Angela Winkler as an actress who penetrates the complexities of her politically and emotionally troubled heroines.