A relationship is formed between a young Oxford student called Otto and an older man who lives on the coast called John. The film tracks that relationship from first encounter to friendship, to romance, to something darker.
Set between the sandstone colleges of Oxford and the salt-encrusted Suffolk coast, Breakwater follows the tentative romance between university student, Otto, and retired angler, John. Their lives fuse irreversibly over the shared trauma of losing a loved one, however, their relationship darkens when the past exhumes itself in the form of guilt, grief, and ghosts.
