As a 13-year-old, fledgling writer Briony Tallis irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.

Set at the end of the 1960s, as Swaziland is about to receive independence from United Kingdom, the film follows the young Ralph Compton, at 12, through his parents' traumatic separation, till he's 14.