After spending nearly 11 years in prison for breaking into an animal experimentation laboratory to expose animal cruelty, a young man is finally released and risks it all again to save more animals.

In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, accepts. After the unique beginning to their love affair, the well-connected and volatile artist assimilates Dyer into his circle of eccentric friends, as Dyer's struggle with addiction strains their bond.