Warwick and Dean are good friends and live in the rural community of Mossburn in Southland. Dean runs his father's farm and lives alone. He signs up for a rural dating service in a bid to find a wife. Warwick married Sabine, who left him to return to Germany to be with her elderly father. They have a young son called Eckie. Warwick hunts butterflies to fill in his lonely days after Sabine's departure (a butler's ringlet is a rare South Island butterfly). Sabine and little Eckie return to New Zealand on holiday. Warwick desperately wants to get back together with Sabine but is hindered by indecision and self-doubt. Dean can see him struggling but has his own problems with a tyrannical father and on-going grief for his dead brother. Both men realise that a mammoth leap of faith is needed to get what they want, but in their separate ways both are paralysed.