Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire) has spent his whole life in a Maine orphanage under the caring gaze of Dr Larch (Michael Caine), who tutors him to become his successor.
But when Homer discovers a world outside the only four walls he has ever known, his simple, ordered life soon becomes confused with emotion.
John Irvine’s script (adapted from his own novel) gently but persistently questions the viewer’s notions of duty and purpose, while the characters struggle to reconcile their needs with their situation, perfectly realised in Caine’s Oscar-winning performance as the sweet, flawed doctor.