Hester Prynne (Demi Moore) is a beautiful, sensual woman in the New World of the Americas. She is a free spirit, trapped in a harsh and puritanical colony, and dominated by a violent husband, Roger Chillingworth (Robert Duvall). She falls in love with the Reverend Dimsdale (Gary Oldman), a passionate man of God, who risks everything for their tempestuous affair. But the couple must face the settlers, toughened by their harsh lives, bent on purging sin from the colony and led by the betrayed Chillingworth who wants only revenge.