Although she has grown up in genteel poverty, Sybylla Melvyn (Judy Davis) has managed to retain a distinctive point of view about life and her place in it. Set in late 19th-century Australia, this story chronicles Sybylla's development from gawky girlhood to assured womanhood and her quest to retain her independence in a male-dominated world. Possessed of literary ambitions, she is encouraged by her wealthy grandmother, with whom she comes to live. Harry Beecham (Sam Neill), a kind and attentive (and rich) local landlord, begins to court her, but she is soon shipped off (in repayment of a family debt) to tutor a grim lot of poor farm children, the McSwats. Harry persists in pressing his suit, and Sybylla persists in enduring her present circumstances, writing all the while, and continues to refuse his proposal of marriage. is based on Miles Franklin's autobiographical novel.