In 1950, twenty-four-year-old writer Flannery O’Connor, recently diagnosed with lupus, visits her mother in Georgia. Desperate to make her mark as a great writer, her crisis pitches her imagination into a feverish exploration of belief—and she dives deeper into her craft.

Ethan Hawke’s searching biopic plunges inside the mind of Flannery O’Connor, a writer who let in both the darkness and the light. Her stories got close to the bone of a changing America, and are brought to vivid life here by the director’s daughter, Maya Hawke, and a star-studded supporting cast.