When spoiled English girl Mary Lennox (Gennie James), living in nineteenth century India loses both parents in a cholera epidemic, she is sent back to England to live in a country mansion. Archibald Craven (Sir Derek Jacobi) is a strange old man, frail and deformed, immensely kind, but so melancholy. She wishes to discover what has caused him so much sorrow and to bring joy back to the household. It all must have something to do with the screams and wails which echo through the house at night and no one wants to talk about.