More than twenty years ago, Jack Slavin (Daniel Day-Lewis) walked away from the mainstream to live a more deliberate life. But the island commune he began in hopes of a better future has long since imploded, and he is now one of its final residents. Jack's only companion is his sixteen-year-old daughter, Rose (Camilla Belle), whom he has carefully sheltered from the outside world. Now, beset by terminal illness, encroaching developers, and Rose's emerging womanhood, Jack faces troubling questions about the days ahead.

In an attempt to provide his daughter with the kind of family she's never known, Jack invites Kathleen (Catherine Keener), the woman he's been secretly seeing on the mainland, and her sons to live with them. But Rose feels betrayed rather than comforted, and lashes out with a willful retribution that places her innocence on the battlefield and Kathleen's safety in danger. His carefully constructed world thrown into chaos, Jack finds himself trapped between two headstrong women and forced to take action.

With The Ballad of Jack and Rose, the award-winning filmmaker Rebecca Miller has created a startling family drama. Miller's screenplay, introduced by the author and accompanied by stills from the film, is a powerful, poetic work, primed to be savored page by page.