Plot

Rural New Zealand, winter 1946. An isolated young wife awaits the return of her husband from World War II. Her fears about his demise come to vivid life in her imagination, but his sudden return only brings new fears.

1946. It is winter in New Zealand, a country recovering from the Second World War. As the harsh winter wind growls outside, Beth entertains Maisy in the modest farmhouse she owns with her absent husband Jonathan. Several months on from VJ Day most New Zealand soldiers have returned home from the Pacific Theatre; but not Jonathan. Despite Maisy's best attempts to raise Beth's spirits, Beth's fears are not easily allayed. After Maisy departs, Beth experiences one of her frequent and menacing visions of Jonathan at the hands of the "enemy": a Japanese soldier evoked by wartime propaganda and a near constant presence in Beth's mind since the War began. As time passes, Beth barely manages to survive the repeated visions that plague her mind on a daily basis. Shaken to the point of despair, Beth immerses herself in the reassuring routine of daily chores, seeking solace in the simple acts of chopping firewood or taking tea. However, after one especially horrifying vision, which plunges Beth into the darkest depths of her despair and threatens to engulf her, Jonathan arrives home, carrying with him a sinister truth that could transform both their lives forever. As Beth soon discovers, the Jonathan she knew before the war may now be as foreign to her as the "enemy" that had occupied and fed her wartime fears.—Chris Payne