A woman's beach vacation takes a dark turn when she begins to confront the troubles of her past.
Leda is a middle-aged divorcee devoted to her work as an English teacher and to her two children. When her daughters leave home to be with their father in Canada, Leda anticipates a period of loneliness and longing. Instead, slightly embarrassed by the sensation, she feels liberated, as if her life has become lighter, easier. She decides to take a holiday by the sea, in a small coastal town in Greece. But after a few days of calm and quiet, things take a menacing turn. Leda encounters a family whose brash presence proves unsettling, at times even threatening. When a small, seemingly meaningless event occurs, Leda is overwhelmed by memories of the difficult, unconventional choices she made as a mother and their consequences for herself and her family. The seemingly serene tale of a woman's pleasant rediscovery of herself soon becomes the story of a ferocious confrontation with an unsettled past.
Too busy with resentment to free herself from a heavy conscience, Leda Caruso, a sad-eyed English professor and translator, decides to take a brief working holiday at a sun-kissed Greek island. Having spent nearly half her life being at war with her wants, needs, and even her impulses, this time, Leda is bent on enjoying her vacation--after all, it's the little things in life that count. However, as Leda whiles away the time going to the beach, reading, and relishing the joy of eating alone, unfavourable omens and an impertinent intrusion in the shape of beautiful Nina's boisterous family threaten to blemish the fleeting illusion. Now, painful fragments of an equally guilty past emerge, bringing to mind the bitter aftertaste of life's tough choices. They say failure shapes us. But does it also define us?—Nick Riganas
While on holiday in Greece (Kyopeli), middle-aged college professor and noted translator, Leda Caruso (Olivia Colman), meets Nina (Dakota Johnson), a young mother, after Nina's three-year-old daughter Elena (Athena Martin) goes momentarily missing on the beach. Leda finds Elena (she simply wandered off and was playing peacefully in one hidden corner of the beach) and returns her to Nina, who expresses her growing exhaustion and unhappiness. Elena is upset after she loses her favorite doll, which Leda has secretly taken.Nina is constantly hit upon by young punks who are also on the island on vacation, as she is sexy looking.
In flashbacks, it is revealed that young Leda also struggled with being a young mother to her two daughters, Bianca (Robyn Elwell) (25 yrs old) and Martha (Ellie Blake) (23 yrs old), often losing her patience and becoming withdrawn from her family. As toddlers Bianca and Martha were a handful and would frequently get lost, driving Leda crazy in trying to find them. Leda gave her own doll to Bianca to play with and Bianca destroyed it, angering Leda. Her husband Joe (Jack Farthing) is no help at all and focuses entirely on his career.Bianca gets more and more belligerent and starts hitting Leda to get her attention. Leda finds it impossible to focus on her work.
One day she sees Female Hiker (Alba Rohrwacher) & Male Hiker (Nikos Poursanidis) trekking through their property and Joe invites them in for dinner. Leda learns that both hikers have families back home and have left them behind to trek in the woods for many months. They are free of guilt and live for themselves.
Seeing Nina with Elena reminds Leda of her own daughters, whom she calls on the phone. Nina's husband Toni arrives on the Island and brings her a hat as a present. Callisto "Callie" (Dagmara Dominczyk) is Nina's sister-in-law and is very dominating. She is 7 months pregnant.Leda is lonely but doesn't allow anyone to get close to her. Lyle, the hotel caretaker is clearly interested in her, but she is not good at the flirting stuff.
Elena is distraught without the doll and the entire resort staff has to look for it, but they don't find it. Leda can see that Nina is clearly overwhelmed with Elena, but Toni's family keeps piling on of top of Nina and reminding her of her responsibility to take care of Elena.One evening, Leda has dinner with Lyle (Ed Harris), her hotel's caretaker, who sees that she has the doll but doesn't comment on it, nor does he tell Nina. Leda later discovers Nina is having an affair with Will (Paul Mescal), an assistant at the resort, and Nina explains that her husband Toni (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is very controlling. The search for Elena's doll continues, with Nina even putting up fliers offering a reward for its return.
Leda remembers how Joe was not able to satisfy her in bed and she used to masturbate using the computer. Professor Cole (Alexandros Mylonas) calls and presents an opportunity to present a paper together. Leda is ecstatic as she gets to travel and do something meaningful for a change. At the conference she meets Professor Hardy (Peter Sarsgaard), who is researching the same author, that Leda is working on. Hardy later invites Leda for dinner, and they end up having sex.
At a market, Leda buys Nina a hatpin to help hold her sunhat in place. When Nina asks Leda about her daughters, Leda becomes emotional; she reveals that she had abandoned them for three years after she became too overwhelmed, leaving them with her now ex-husband, during which time she had an affair with a fellow professor. She admits that being away from her daughters felt "amazing," and she only went back to them when she genuinely missed them.Nina learns that Leda knows about her and Will, and Will later asks Leda if they can borrow her apartment to have sex.
The next day when Nina arrives at Leda's to get the apartment keys, Leda admits to being a selfish and "unnatural" mother and warns Nina that her depression will never go. Leda also gives her Elena's doll, confessing that she took it and that she was "just playing." Nina reacts angrily and stabs Leda in the stomach with the hatpin before leaving. That night, Leda packs her bags and leaves the resort, but drives her car off the road due to the pain from her wound. She stumbles down the beach and collapses on the shoreline.
The next morning, Leda awakens on the beach and calls Bianca, who happens to be with Martha. They express their relief to hear from their mother, from whom they had not heard in several days. Leda says she is fine and then looks down to discover an orange in her hands; she peels the orange skin off "like a snake," the way she had done for her daughters when they were little.
