Walden is a crime anti-thriller continuing in a tradition of contemplative cinema established by Robert Bresson, Andrei Tarkovsky, Yasujiro Ozu, and others. It centers on a young political extremist who commits an act of violence and is forced to hide out in the woods of rural Georgia after his wife reports him. The film lingers in the pauses and procedures of fugitive life, emphasizing the ghost-like, observational and reflective role forced upon the man in hiding.

In a dying Appalachian town, broken souls collide in a Southern Gothic tale of violence, survival, and unlikely kinship.