Taken in the countryside manor of his grand benefactor, the Victorian aristocrat Sir Harald Alabaster (Jeremy Kemp), the penniless but brilliant entomologist, William Adamson (Mark Rylance), accepts an assistant position to catalogue his wealthy patron's specimen collection. However, as a fervent romance with the patriarch's alluring oldest daughter, Eugenia (Patsy Kensit), will soon lead to marriage, little by little, William will become enmeshed in the microcosm of the Alabasters, as he discovers the family's uncomfortable and well-hidden secret. Will the scientist ever become one of them?
—Nick Riganas