It is a beautiful summer evening when a family, returning home from a concert, stop on a quiet back road. It is only intended to be a momentary delay in an otherwise uneventful journey but when a car races round the corner, knocking down and killing ten-year-old Josh before disappearing into the darkness, the family's lives are shattered forever.
Parents Ethan and Grace are left devastated and, as each struggles to deal with their grief in very different ways, they soon find cracks appearing in their previously perfect marriage. Unbeknown to them the driver of the car, Dwight, is also wrestling with his emotions. A father himself, he is both determined to escape and desperate to get caught and as both his and Ethan's lives begin to unravel, Reservation Road moves to its startling and emotional climax.