Feast of July

Feast of July is a melodrama about a young woman, Bella Ford, who is seduced and abandoned by the unscrupulous womanizer Arch Wilson. Bella tries to find Arch in the hope that he will marry her because this is the Victorian Age and she is pregnant. But before she finds Arch, she gives birth to a dead-born baby in a barn outside of town. When she finally arrives in the town where Arch is supposed to stay, she is so exhausted that a family take pity on her and ask her to come and stay with them. Bella is a pretty girl and the Wainwraights have three unmarried, grown-up sons...

The characters, especially Embeth Davidtz, are all more enigmatic than necessary, which make it difficult to identify with them and understand their motives.