 After a train is bombed, a kindly Englishwoman (Maggie Smith) invites several of the recovering survivors back to her Italian villa. One of the survivors is a young American girl (Emmy Clarke) whose mother was killed in the wreck. Initially traumatized to the point of not speaking, the child, Aimee, responds to the older woman s kindness. The child s interest in life is slowly rekindled. Authorities seek relatives who might take the child and finds an uncle (Chris Cooper), who is not known to the child. An unkind and seemingly unfeeling man, he and his wife are childless professionals studying carpenter ants. The couple are obviously willing to take the child, but equally obvious is that they are doing it as an obligation. The uncle and the Englishwoman struggle to find common grounds as he contemplates returning to America with the child.