Although her father was killed in Vietnam when she was a baby, Kentucky girl Samantha Hughes (Emily Lloyd) vows to learn more about him -- against the wishes of her remarried mother (Joan Allen), who, in contrast, wants Samantha to live in the present. Samantha joins her unstable veteran uncle, Emmett (Bruce Willis), on a journey into the past. Director Norman Jewison uses Samantha's quest to confront the Vietnam War's still-painful legacy.