Two women, Jill and Ellen, struggle with a chicken farm. Paul Grenfell returns, restores order, and proposes to Ellen. Jill's manipulations awaken Ellen's dormant homosexuality, leading them to become lovers.
Based on D.H. Lawrence's novella about two young women - sickly, chattering Jill Banford and quiet, strong Ellen March - who are trying, hopelessly, to run a chicken farm in Canada. A gentle but powerful man named Paul Grenfell who used to live on their farm returns and puts things in order. But his proposal of marriage to Ellen awakens the homosexuality dormant in the girls: Jill uses her weakness to make Ellen feel protective, and the women become active lovers.—alfiehitchie
A fox in a hen house and a dying oak tree are used as analogies to tell the story of the intersecting lives of three people in rural Ontario. Following college where they met, Jill Banford was able to convince her friend Ellen March to live together as chicken farmers in relative isolation from the rest of the world. It is the middle of their first winter on the farm, their livelihood with which they are struggling financially, it not helped by being plagued by a fox routinely raiding their hen house, Ellen who has been unable to kill it. While Jill is chatty but dependent on Ellen to make this venture work, Jill handling the books and domestic chores, Ellen is the strong but relatively silent one handling most of the heavy farm work. Into their lives enters Paul Grenfell, the grandson of the farm's previous owner. Being a merchant marine, Paul was unaware not only that the farm was sold to Jill and Ellen, but that his grandfather passed away. Two weeks until he needs to return to his ship with he having planned to spend the time with his grandfather, Paul and Jill/Ellen come to an agreement for Paul to stay on the farm in return for doing some of the heavier farm work. Outwardly, Paul's interaction with the two women is much like the two women interact with each other: Paul is chattier with Jill, but he and Ellen seem to have a non-verbal means of communicating. Without any romantic encounters up to this point, Paul announces to Ellen that he fell in love with her on first sight and knew that he would marry her, she who agrees to the proposal. This news to Jill forces the two women not only to examine their situation, but also their relationship and the reason that they both, unspoken, entered into this outwardly hard life.—Huggo
Jill Banford and Ellen March are a couple of soon to be spinsters whom are struggling to support themselves by raising chickens on an isolated farm in rural Ontario, Canada. Dependent Jill tends to household chores and finances while the self-sufficient Ellen deals with heavier work, such as chopping wood, repairing fences, and stalking the fox that keeps raiding their coops, although she is hesitant about killing it. Jill seems content with their secluded existence, but the frustrated Ellen is less enchanted by the solitude.
In the dead of winter, merchant seaman Paul Grenfel arrives in search of his grandfather, the now-deceased former owner of the farm. With nowhere else to go while on leave, he persuades the women to allow him to stay with them in exchange for helping with the work. Tension among the three slowly escalates when his attentions to Ellen arouse Jill's resentment and jealousy.
Eventually Paul tracks and kills the fox. Just before his departure, he makes love to Ellen and asks her to leave with him, but she confesses she would feel guilty about abandoning Jill. After Paul returns to his ship, the women resume their regular routine. In the tension of it all the women admit their desires for each other and make love after Ellen admits no man not even Paul has ever satisfied her in bed. The women decide to stay together as a couple now however Paul returns unexpectedly and while the two are chopping down a dying oak. He offers to complete the job and warns Jill to move away from the tree's potential path as it falls, but she refuses to listen and is killed when it crashes on her. Ellen sells the farm and she and Paul set off to start a new life together.
