Plot

Whilst on a family vacation on the Mahurangi Peninsula in New Zealand, 13-year-old Janey begins to realize that her parents' marriage is on the rocks.

Janey is on vacation with her brother, Jim, mother, Kate, and father Ed, at their beach house on the Mahurangi Peninsual in New Zealand. Ed and Kate, who are on the verge of divorce, sit around in the back yard all day drinking whiskey and Janey and Jim are left to their own devices. Cady, a local boatee who is having an affair with Kate, catches Janey's pubescent eye. In response to his wife's drinking problem and recurring infidelity, Ed turns to alcohol, ignoring his children almost as much as his wife, which eventually leads to a character's fate.—NZFILM

In New Zealand, the teenager Janey, her young brother Jim, her mother Kate and her father Ed are spending their summer vacation in a seaside cottage. Janey takes care of Jim most of the time, teaches him how to have endurance under the water, and observes the behavior of her parents, whose marriage is near the end. Kate and Ed promote many parties in the house and mainly Kate drinks a lot. She is also having an affair with the photographer and owner of a boat, Cady. The confused adolescent, rebel with her mother and dealing with a growing sexuality, tries to act like an adult with tragic consequences to the family.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

At a cottage on the water's edge of the Mahurangi Peninsula in the New Zealand summer of 1972, Janey must deal with the dissolution of her parents' marriage and care for her little brother, Jim. When a photographer named Cady docks nearby, her mother gravitates toward him while her dad grows depressed. Janey, meanwhile, copes with her budding sexuality and impending adulthood.—NZFILM