Based on Timothy Findley's acclaimed novel, the film follows Robert Ross (Brent Carver), a nineteen-year-old Canadian living a protected life with his family in an affluent Toronto suburb. He enlists in World War I after the death of his intellectually disabled sister (Ann-Marie MacDonald) in an attempt to escape his grief and the social norms of Edwardian society. Drawn into the madness of war, he finds another way to resolve his conflicts, his dramas, his passions-his wars.