The sacrament of Baptism is an important moment in the life of a Christian child who, often unaware, experiences this rite that marks the entrance into the life of faith and equally charged with meaning for the persons who accompany him; the parents in the first place, godmothers and godfathers and all the family and friends.
Father David Anderton is assigned to a crippled Scottish town on the Ayrshire coast, where sectarianism is rife. He is a cultivated - if naive and unworldly - man, ill-suited to his new parish. Drifting from his peers, he is drawn to Mark and Lisa, a feral teenage couple who attend the nearby school.