The film follows Immacolata (played by an exceptional Vanessa Redgrave), a free-spirited woman who has spent time in a psychiatric hospital. She is granted a temporary release—a "vacation"—back into the outside world.

This was the original —not velvet ropes, but no ropes at all. A dozen artists, exiles, and heirs to nothing. We danced to samba on warped vinyl. We slept in hammocks strung between palm trees. Entertainment was a guitar, a fire, and the confession of a stranger.