Celia (Rebecca Smart) is a fiercely independent and imaginative 9-year old who lives uncomfortably with her buttoned-down family in suburban Melbourne in the 1950s. Her church going parents are troubled by sexual frustrations and irrational fears about the rise of communism, causing Celia to find refuge with her treasured, tolerant grandmother. But when the latter dies, Celia's world falls apart until a friendship blossoms with new neighbor Alice (Victoria Longley in an AFI winning performance), a fun-loving, open-minded woman with young children.