Kitty Baldry (Julie Chirstie) is a haughty society queen with a tunneled view of life. Kitty's complacency is rocked when her husband, Captain Chris Baldry (Alan Bates), returns from the front during the First World War shell-shocked and suffering amnesia, not knowing who she is and determined for a reunion with Margaret Grey (Glenda Jackson), a working class lover from his past. Kitty employs psychiatrist Dr. Gilbert Anderson (Ian Holm), to help unscramble her husband's feelings for the women in his new disoriented life including his all-too caring cousin Jenny (Ann-Margret), but ultimately comes to realize that the man she knew is unreachable, as dead as the past he pines for.