It was written and directed by John Greyson, and based on the novel The Law of Enclosures by Dale Peck.

The story traces the marital relationship of Henry and Beatrice, characters based on Peck's real-life parents, over the course of their lives from their courtship as young adults to their 40th wedding anniversary.

For the film adaptation, Greyson set the events in 1991 against the backdrop of the first Gulf War, with Henry and Beatrice's younger and older selves all coexisting in a single time frame.

Sarah Polley and Brendan Fletcher play Beatrice and Henry as a young couple, with Diane Ladd and Sean McCann playing the older characters.

While author Peck was born in New York and raised in Kansas, Greyson set the film in Sarnia, Ontario.