In contemporary Russia young brothers Vanya and Andrey have grown a deep attachment to each other to make up for their fatherless childhood. Running home after a fight with neighborhood kids the boys are shocked to discover their father has returned after a twelve-year absence. With their mother's uneasy blessing Vanya and Andrey set out on what they believe will be a fishing vacation with their taciturn father.

Though at first ecstatic to be reunited with the father they've only known from a faded photograph, the boys strain under the weight of their dad's awkward and increasingly brutal efforts to make up for a missing decade of parental supervision. Vanya and Andrey find themselves alternately tested, scolded, scrutinized and ignored by their father through a changing series of encounters and hardships. As truck stops and cafés give way to rain-swept, primevally beautiful wilderness coastline, Vanya's doubts about his father give way to open defiance. Andrey's powerful need to bond with a father he's never known begins, in turn, to distance him from Vanya.

Vanya and his father's test of wills escalates into bitter hostility and sudden violence as the trio arrives at their mysterious island destination. The dubious sanctuary of a rickety light tower, the desperate reassurance of a stolen knife, the cryptic allure of a rusting strong box and the fleeting safety of a hastily patched boat give evidence to the ultimately tragic conclusion of Vanya and Andrey's harrowing father and son journey and the heartbreakingly transitory nature of their reunion.