A movie that was several things at once, including funny and sad, touching and surprising, human-scaled but just heightened enough to be rivetingly dramatic. — Ann Hornaday

Sammy (Laura Linney) is a single mother who is extremely protective of her 8-year old son (Rory Culkin). She is satisfied with living in the small town she grew up in and working in a local bank. When her brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo) visits he fits the void in the life of both her and her son. Temporarily free of the constraints of single motherhood she begins to break free of her normal routine. In a string of traumatic events Sammy is torn between helping her brother and her maternal instinct to protect her son from getting hurt.