The film portrays a wide-ranging conversation among three characters: Sonia, a Norwegian physicist who abandoned a lucrative career after discovering that elements of her work were being applied to weapons development, Jack, an American politician attempting to make sense of his recent defeat as a presidential candidate, and Tom, a poet, Jack's close friend, and a disillusioned former political speechwriter, while they wander around Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy.

Thomas Harriman, the poet, recites the poem "Enigmas" by Pablo Neruda (based on the translation by Robert Bly) at the end of the movie, concluding the core discussion.

The movie was filmed on site at the Mont Saint-Michel and has views of (and scenes conceptually based around) many structures and features there, including the approach over the tidal flats, the cathedral, the walkways, a torture chamber, and a giant, ancient clock mechanism.

[2] Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times described the film as an "unusually good-looking movie", but said the complexities of its dialogue may be challenging to viewers and it will "most likely appeal to people who already agree with" its ecologically-minded ideas.

[1] Wilmington had praise for the lead actors, writing, "Ullmann, Waterston and Heard are such expert actors that they’re able to bend the script’s seeming didacticism: Ullmann by a quiet intensity that recalls her best roles for Ingmar Bergman; Waterston by a halting, gravelly, almost ingenuous phrasing that suggests Jerry Brown trying to be Jimmy Stewart; and Heard by a flow of spontaneous wisecracks, only some of which sound scripted.