 Kitty Baldry (Julie Chirstie) is a haughty society queen with a tunneled view of life. Kitty s complacency is rocked when her husband, Captain Chris Baldry (Alan Bates), returns from the front during the First World War shell-shocked and suffering amnesia, not knowing who she is and determined for a reunion with Margaret Grey (Glenda Jackson), a working class lover from his past. Kitty employs psychiatrist Dr. Gilbert Anderson (Ian Holm), to help unscramble her husband s feelings for the women in his new disoriented life including his all-too caring cousin Jenny (Ann-Margret), but ultimately comes to realize that the man she knew is unreachable, as dead as the past he pines for.