The title cradle refers to a house, more properly a boat house, where the main characters of this story live. Anchored in a small marina, the three - a mother, the father and a teenage son - try to manage the small occurrences of a routine different from the usual in a different life. The relationship between the mother and her child is disturbed when a group in a neighbouring boat invites the child to join a small party and the child glimpses a piece of freedom. Through a sensuous look, reflected in the time that the film devotes to the small gestures, this is a melancholy bump over the passage of time and about growth.