I've often seen that this is playing on TV and not watched it for one reason or another. It's about a squemish topic: incest and child molestation. I might have missed the first few minutes. I started it once but couldn't quite pay enough attention to grasp Daniel Day-Lewis's accent. Regardless, it was on again the other day when I could pay attention, see the whole thing, and deal with the subject matter. I'm very happy I did.
The movie is billed as one in which a young girl, Camilla Belle, deals with her attraction to her father, Lewis. They live on an unpopulated island "off the east coast" in the remains of a commune from the 60s (the father had a hand in developing it). The girl's mother is gone and she rarely sees anyone but her father. No TV and rare outside influence. That sounds a tad reductive and simple. But the movie is actually a look into that life with the complication that the father is dying of a heart disease and he has to face the fact that he's leaving his daughter without a way in the world. He's isolated her so much that she has little hopes of surviving in the real world. The father brings in a woman he's been sleeping with (who lives on the mainland), Catherine Keener, and her two sons, an obsese possible gay older son and a rebellious younger son, Paul Dano. Meanwhile, Beau Bridges is a property developer encroaching on the isolated commune much to Lewis's dismay.
What the viewer gets is a look into a complicated relationship between father and daughter when the daughter is coming of age. It's really quite well done and a thoughtful movie.
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