South Africa. David Lurie, 52 years old and twice divorced, is a lecturer at Cape Town College. He becomes embroiled in an affair with one of his students and is summoned to a disciplinary committee hearing. He confesses, is fired and sets out to visit his daughter Lucy, who runs a farm in the countryside. One day, he and Lucy are brutally attacked by a group of black people. She is raped but refuses to press charges. David still embraces the standards and values of the old South Africa. Lucy, who refuses to have an abortion, is a child of the new South Africa. The gulf between the old and the new way of life is simply too wide: ‘I no longer know what is at stake. It’s like the curtain has closed between Lucy’s and my generation. I didn’t even notice it happening.’