In the summer of 1957, Dani Trant (Reese Witherspoon) is a 14-year-old girl in Louisiana who, according to her father, is “too big to be running off by herself.” Dani and her older sister Maureen (Emily Warfield), who is going off to college in the fall, are very close. Maureen helps take care of their younger sister, Missy, while their mother Abigail (Tess Harper) is pregnant. Dani however prefers to run off into the neighbor’s pond to go swimming in the nude.