- In 1905, French seminarian Bruno Reidel is found guilty of murdering a child. At the request of the doctors observing him, he writes his memoirs to explain his action.
- In sepia tones, the film moves back and forth among three periods in Robert Tucker's life he's an old man, near death, in a nursing home at Christmas time; he's in middle age caring for his cheerful but dying mother; he's a lad at Catholic school, practicing his catechism, going to confession for the first time, receiv…