Beautiful, detached, laconic, consumptive Lily Brest is a streetwalker with few clients. She loves her idle boyfriend Raoul who gambles away what little she earns. The town's power broker, called the rich Jew, discovers she is a good listener, so she's soon busy. Raoul imagines grotesque sex scenes between Lily and the Jew; he leaves her for a man. Her parents, a bitter Fascist who is a cabaret singer in drag and her wheelchair-bound mother, offer no refuge. Even though all have a philosophical bent, the other whores reject Lily because she tolerates everyone, including men. She tires of her lonely life and looks for a way out. Even that act serves the local corrupt powers.

《光之天使》将镜头对准了阿富汗喀布尔一所学校的几名学生和老师，历时三年拍摄。导演詹姆斯·朗利带着深深的同理心，通过讲述这些师生的希望和恐惧，为仍在经受国家动荡的阿富汗人民绘制了一幅全面而生动的群像，并提出“阿富汗人民的未来将会是怎样的”的疑问。这部电影将阿富汗近代史与现代肖像交织在一起，亲密而细致地展现了一个战争阴影下的社会图景。