 A meteor shower
lights up the winter sky over a rural Vermont
community, illuminating the lives of three,
disparate families.
Nan (Dorothy Lyman) is a writer who has retreated to a farm outside a college
town. Nan loses a beloved horse to a parasite, an event that haunts and mystifies
her. Nan's partner, Sandra (Dey Young), comforts Nan, but their cozy togetherness
is interrupted by the unexpected appearance of Sandra's daughter, Enid (Heidi
Armbruster). The young woman is disoriented and confused, awestruck by an encounter
with the numinous. Nan and Sandra seek the help of Sandra's ex-husband, David
(Richard Bekins) a phlegmatic psychotherapist with unusual ideas.
In the nearby town, St. Claire Rodman (Ed Blunt) has returned from Iraq, his
hand destroyed in combat, his mind grappling with the meaning of his loss. His
sister, a writer and professor named Verlaine (Linda Powell), dutifully cares
for their dying mother. St. Claire's selfish grief and anger comes between the
siblings, compounding the Rodman family's despondency.
And housekeeper Kathy McClellan (Kate Buddeke) struggles with her grown children,
Carissa (Betty Gilpin) and Glen (Cosmo Pfeil). Glen's paranoid delusions about
war and the government contain an explosive secret - and a kernel of truth.
The Northern Kingdom examines loss - ordinary and dramatic - and the way nature
resolves sorrow, even in the depths of winter. |
