Stephen Lewis is a successful children's book author whose daughter suddenly goes missing. Set two years after the girl's disappearance, The Child In Time follows Lewis as he struggles to find purpose in his life without her. His wife Julie (Macdonald) has left him, and his best friends Charles (Campbell Moore) and Thelma (Reeves) have retired to the countryside, battling demons of their own. The film explores the dark territory of a marriage devastated, the loss of childhood, the fluidity of time, grief, hope and acceptance.