Synopsis

Production Weekly gives a synopsis of the book: The novel tells of two families whose lives are intertwined when one father accidentally kills the son of the other family in a hit-and-run accident. At the close of a beautiful summer day near the quiet Connecticut town where they live, the Learner family -- Ethan and Grace, their children, Josh and Emma -- stop at a gas station on their way home from a concert. Josh Learner, lost in a 10-year-old's private world, is standing at the edge of the road when a car comes racing around the bend. He is hit and instantly killed. The car speeds away.

From this moment forward, the story becomes a harrowing countdown to the confrontation between two very different men. The hit-and-run driver is a small-town lawyer named Dwight Arno, a man in desperate need of a second chance. Dwight is also the father of a ten-year-old boy, who was asleep in the car the night Josh Learner was killed. Now Dwight must decide whether to run from his crime or to pay the price for what he did. Ethan Learner, a respected professor of literature at a small New England college, has seen his orderly world shattered in a single moment, yet persists in the belief that he can find the unknown man who killed his son. Behind their stories are those of eight-year-old Emma, who can't stop thinking her brother's death was her fault, and of Grace, who must find the strength to keep herself and her family together, and to be the mother Emma so badly needs.

Source movieweb.com

A compelling tale of the lure of revenge and the power of redemption. The drama revolves around two fathers whose families and lives tragically converge with the death of a child. In the aftermath, Ethan (two-time Academy Award nominee Joaquin Phoenix) and Dwight (Mark Ruffalo) each react in unexpected ways as their families struggle to cope and an emotional reckoning looms. Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly plays Grace, Ethan?s wife; Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino plays Ruth, Dwight?s ex-wife.

Source moviefone.com

The film centers on a father who accidentally kills a young man in a hit-and-run forcing the two families to clash over the horrific tragedy. Phoenix and Ruffalo play the respective fathers of the two families with Jennifer Connelly playing Phoenix's wife and Sorvino playing Ruffalo's ex-wife.

Source filmfocus.com

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