Rose McNulty (Vanessa Redgrave/Rooney Mara), once a vibrant and lively beauty, has spent the majority of her adult life confined to a mental hospital in Ireland. Institutionalized during the war and kept there for so long, no one seems to remember why Rose was hospitalized in the first place. When new chief psychiatrist Dr. Grene (Eric Bana) arrives, he takes a keen interest in Rose. He finds a hidden memoir, written over the course of decades by Rose, that unravels the mystery of her wartime love, incarceration, and the tale of her passionate, yet tortured, life.