Janey is on vacation with her family at their beach house on the Mahurangi Peninsula in New Zealand. Her parents, Ed and Kate, are on the verge of divorce and sit around drinking whiskey all day, while Janey and Jim are left to their own devices. Cady, a local boaty who is having an affair with Kate, catches Janey's pubescent eye.

A young solo mother loves her son and his needs are formost, but she still has room in her heart for her very broken brother, even as her fundamentalist mother rejects her. But when the brother is responsible for a woman's broken neck, during his burglary of her house, families are changed as crisis amplifies and at times the young mother seems to be the only adult.