Nothing ever really prepares you for family.

Once the star of television's most popular daytime soap, James, has retreated to a quiet coastal town to nurse the slow unravelling of his mind. With him is his sister, Patricia, whose own mental illness has left her a shadow of her former self and Catherine, James's dearest friend and artistic collaborator. Drawn together by their creative connection but repelled by their individual idiosyncrasies, James, Catherine and Patricia struggle to reach an elusive equilibrium in their domestic life. As James's grasp on reality begins to loosen, however, he becomes preoccupied by the fear that when he goes he'll leave his life's work - a sweeping memoir - behind him. To soothe his growing unease, he talks Catherine into pact: if one person dies, the other will finish his/her work. But simple promises are never as simple as they seem.