Reason Boles is on a mission to stop loggers from destroying his family's ancestral land. In a chance encounter, he meets Addy and her 7-year-old daughter Bell, who are fleeing their past in the hopes of starting a new life. Together, Reason and Addy are given the chance to transcend the violence in their lives, or be destroyed by it.

When her mentally ill, elderly mother begins mutilating herself, Jessie (Kim Basinger) returns to her hometown to care for her. Among familiar surroundings, she tends to her mother's deteriorating mental condition while learning of troubling revelations about her family history. Meanwhile, though married, Jessie reconnects with old passions -- including a turbulent affair with a monk named Hugh (Bruce Greenwood).