The western is one of America’s most important and influential contributions to world culture. And it was Owen Wister’s The Virginian, first published in 1902, that created the familiar archetypes of character, setting, and action that still dominate western fiction and film.

The lives of 91-year-old Ira Levinson, young cowboy Luke, and Wake Forest College senior Sophia Danko converge in an extraordinary and unexpected way as Ira clings to his wife Ruth's words and his memories and Sophia finds herself imagining a future far removed from her plans.