A son's flawed quest to free his wrongfully imprisoned mother.

1950s housewife Rosie Gilchrist is severely burned by accident or perhaps by her own hand. Hospitalized, Rosie is rescued by a black nurse, whom she later repays by joining the nascent Oklahoma civil rights struggle. When Rosie makes plans to sell her home to a black family, she is arrested and imprisoned in a mental hospital. Carrying his own guilt for his part in her arrest, her son aches to win her freedom, but sabotages his chance of success. Nonetheless ...