A young girl lives in the Outer Hebrides in a small village in the years just before WWI. Isolated and hard by the shore, her life takes a dramatic change when a terrible tragedy befalls her.
Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.
Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.
Kate Winslet'ın bu etkileyici ilk yönetmenlik denemesinde Helen Mirren, son vedasını kendi istediği gibi yapmayı planlayan hasta ve kıvrak zekâlı bir anneyi canlandırıyor.