Sarah (Asia Argento) becomes involved with a series of men who treat her, and her seven-year-old son, Jeremiah (Jimmy Bennett), poorly, and she uses them as an excuse to abandon her son. She disappears to Atlantic City, New Jersey with her boyfriend, Emerson (Jeremy Renner), and then abandons him; Emerson returns to their home and rapes Jeremiah. After a trip to the hospital, Jeremiah's grandmother (Ornella Muti) takes him to a West Virginian radical Christianity cult led by his grandfather (Peter Fonda). After he has been three years with the cult, Sarah returns to reclaim the 11-year-old Jeremiah (Dylan Sprouse and Cole Sprouse).