Ursula Powell returns to her family home in the Georgia mountains when her father dies. Now there is only Ursula and her autistic brother Arthur at the farm, along with an abstract iron sculpture of a bear which towers above the backyard. Commissioned years before from a struggling New York artist called Richard Riconni, the bear has been a symbolic and powerful presence in the lives of the Powell family. Arthur believes the bear embodies the spirit of their dead mother. So when the artist's son Quentin Riconni arrives in town to reclaim the sculpture, emotions run high.
In his wallet, Quentin carries a faded photograph of Ursula as a child, standing with her father in front of the sculpture. The two have never met, but it seems they have been a part of one another's lives for many years. Now, drawn together by destiny, they embark on an affair of the heart which cannot be broken by distance or difference.
