Distrustful of modern society, environmental scientist Jay Mize moves his family off the grid to a stretch of riverbottom farmland in the Mississippi hills, where he hopes to position himself at the forefront of a revolution in agriculture. After suffering drought, flood, pestilence and family turmoil, Jay uncovers a dead body in his water-logged field. Rather than alert the authorities, he mounts a paranoid cover-up, which invites more unwanted trouble to his sacred homestead.
Beset by a growing madness, Jay is pitted against his estranged wife, who has become unhinged by her own trials, and a local deputy, whose interest in the family is not strictly in the pursuit of justice. Through a maze of misperceptions and personal obsessions, these characters endeavor — however clumsily — to uphold their own sense of honor as they tumble toward a showdown in the treacherous mudflats.
