Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons plays Tom Crick, a high school history teacher who is having trouble connecting - with his class and his wife. Faced with the sack from his boss (John Heard), Tom begins to interrupt his classes with a series of extraordinary stories about his upbringing in the English Fens.

However, one student (Ethan Hawke, Training Day, Dead Poets Society) proves to be more of a challenge, pushing Tom to make revelations about his past which still have a haunting grip on his life, threatening to consume all around him.