Tessa is a budding photographer whose life is painted with light, memory, and the ache of abandonment. The film opens with a tense traffic accident, leaving a girl on the road barely moving and another lying still, before shifting to the hospital where Tessa awakens, setting a quiet, introspective tone for what follows.
Flashbacks thread through the narrative, beginning 182 days earlier in a coastal town where Tessa spends her mornings chasing images and wanders into a local theater to watch a classic French film. There she meets Skylar, a true romantic who offers to translate, and their chemistry unfolds with a gentle, unsettled tension. Their two worlds collide with poetry and friction, revealing that they view love and art through different lenses. The sparks between them deepen as Tessa returns to the moment with Skylar in focus and the world sharpened through her camera lens.
Eighty days after that first encounter, Tessa receives encouragement to apply to RISD, a pivotal moment that promises a future for her photography. She continues to chase Skylar, and after a day of shooting a rowing meet, she finally reclaims the connection they share. The two spend a day together where Skylar shows her the world as she sees it through her camera, and at the Empyrean—an abandoned hotel once used by honeymooners—Skylar teaches her to waltz. A kiss seals a promise: he will return at the end of the month to stay for the summer.
In the present timeline, Tessa is back at school as the RISD deadline looms, and her life is shadowed by the implications of her growing work and the memory of Skylar. At home, she discards her developing materials, and her adoptive father reminds her of the instability of her birth family. A recurring image of a Robert Doisneau photograph titled Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville anchors her longing for a moment that might never come again.
A flashback to July 4 follows, after fireworks, where Tessa reveals to Skylar the hurt of her mother’s abandonment and the resulting pull into foster care. They venture onto a boat, he teaches her to row, and their day culminates in an intimate moment by the shore, a shared confession of love that further binds them.
Meanwhile, Tessa shares with her friend Shannon the concept of The In Between—the idea that the recently deceased may need a final contact within a brief window before moving on. In a strange sequence of signs, Tessa’s SAT scribble reappears on Skylar’s hand, and a serendipitous moment occurs when their song, Never tear us apart, booms from the silenced phones of those around them.
Eleven days before the accident, a moment of friction cracks the couple. Skylar’s decision to exhibit a photo she gifted him triggers a clash over her ability to express her feelings openly. She suggests that she voice her emotions more clearly, while Skylar wants to see a shared future that remains just out of reach. The tension between fear and affection colors their interactions, especially as Skylar proposes a tangible future that Tessa hesitates to fully embrace.
Shannon becomes a guide for Tessa as she tries to channel Skylar after reading several books about the afterlife and communication. They experiment with planchette, scrying, and instrumental trans-communication, using electronic devices to bridge the gap between the living and the dead. The built-in GPS in Tessa’s adoptive mother’s car leads her back to The In Between’s author, Doris, whom she had met in the hospital. Doris points toward the person and place where Tessa’s strongest connections might lie, nudging her toward a search that could unlock Skylar’s presence.
Five days before the accident, Tessa learns that Skylar will travel to Oregon to support his father for the year, a move that could pull them apart just as she has applied to RISD and is on the verge of expressing her love. She decides to break away from the relationship as a sign that she must pursue her own path and voice.
With new resolve and tangible tools, Tessa buys special photography equipment and, with Shannon’s help, retraces the places that tether Skylar to her. They reconnect at The Empyrean, but the moment is tempered by Skylar’s emotional intensity; he shatters a mirror in a dramatic moment that draws the attention of the police, tracked via his mobile phone.
Back at home, Tessa’s adoptive parents tighten their grip on her, and her condition worsens to the point where doctors tell her heart needs repair the next day. Shannon helps her depart from the hospital, aided by Skylar’s manipulating of electronics to distract the nurses and guide them toward the scene of the accident.
In a pivotal flashback to the night of the accident, Shannon urges Tessa to seize Skylar before he leaves. The timelines converge as paramedics attend to Tessa, and an ephemeral reunion with Skylar unfolds in a Parisian vision—black and white, echoing Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville. They return to the beach house, where Tessa hears her adoptive mother calling her back. She tearfully reminds Skylar that “love never dies,” and then resolves to return to life and to live fully.
Sometime later, Tessa auditions for RISD, presenting the photographs she created during their time together and articulating the phenomenon of The In Between as a real, transformative window of connection.
In the film’s mid-credits scene, Tessa and Skylar wander the beach, tracing their silhouettes in the sand as the story lingers in a dreamlike, bittersweet reverie.
