Selma Jezkova (Björk) is a Czech immigrant, a single mother living in a trailer with her ten year-old son, Gene. Selma and Gene rent their home from their next-door neighbors, the local policeman Bill (Dave Morse) and his wife, Linda (Cara Seymour). Bill and Linda are model neighbors, often watching Gene while Selma works.

Selma works at a tool and die factory making stainless steel sinks; she supplements her income in her free time by carding hairpins. A hereditary disease is rapidly robbing Selma of her sight and she is determined to put away enough money to secure an operation for Gene before he suffers the same fate.

In the evenings, Selma and her friend Kathy (Catherine Deneuve) rehearse for an amateur production of 'The Sound of Music.' Their enthusiasm makes up for their inexperience although Kathy has only agreed to take part to humor her friend. Selma is playing Maria. Occasionally, the two friends go to the movies to watch musicals. To the annoyance of the rest of the audience, Kathy describes to Selma what her friend can not see.

Kathy suspects that Selma’s vision is far worse than she lets on and she is surprised when her friend manages to pass an eye test required by the factory. In fact, Selma has copied the eye chart and committed it to memory. Meanwhile, her sight grows worse by the day.

Selma has an admirer, Jeff (Peter Stormare), who waits patiently outside the factory every day in hope that she will accept a lift home. Selma always refuses Jeff, but he waits for her anyway.

One evening, Selma’s neighbor Bill confesses that his savings are exhausted and he fears that he will lose his house. Bill can’t bring himself to tell his spendthrift wife, Linda, who thinks he has a private income. Selma confides in Bill that she is going blind and that she has almost saved enough money to pay for an operation for Gene. Bill and Selma part with the promise to keep their respective secrets.

At the factory, Selma finds it increasingly difficult to disguise her failing eyesight. She is continually distracted by the rhythm of the presses and the clattering of the steel sinks and begins to imagine that she and her co-workers are in a musical. The hissing and clanging of the machinery inspires daydreams of elaborate song and dance routines. But Selma’s imagination is dangerous for an operator of industrial equipment and her lack of concentration doesn’t go unnoticed by Norman, the shop foreman (Jean-Marc Barr). Kathy tries to protect her, but she too is worried about Selma’s ability to work.

Bill asks Selma for a loan but she gently refuses, reminding him that her savings will save her child from blindness. He apologizes for asking. Back at the factory, over Kathy’s protests, Selma takes on a night shift. Kathy is furious but when Selma arrives for her first night duty, Kathy is there, too.

Again, Bill goes to Selma, but this time he tells her that he has decided to confess to his wife that they are broke and hope for the best. He makes as if to leave Selma’s trailer but hides in the corner instead, watching as she stashes her money in its hiding place.

Selma and Kathy go their rehearsal but it’s obvious to Selma that she can’t play Maria. She can no longer see the edge of the stage. She tells the director, Samuel (Vincent Paterson) that she would prefer to have a smaller part. At work, Norman reluctantly tells her that he must let her go. He gives Selma her final wage packet.

Jeff is waiting for Selma as she leaves the factory and walks her home along the train tracks. When Selma is nearly hit by an oncoming freight train, Jeff realizes that her vision has gone. Selma, imagining that the workers on the flatbed train are performing in her own private musical, asks Jeff to pick her up that afternoon for a drive. Arriving home, she goes to her hiding place to stash her final pay only to find that the tin is empty.

Selma goes to Bill, knowing that he has taken her money. Linda confronts her, saying that Bill has told her everything: Bill rebuffed Selma’s advances and now she is seeking revenge. Selma insists on seeing Bill. He admits to taking the money, but refuses to turn it over until Selma puts him out of his misery. A struggle ensues and Bill is wounded. He begs her to finish the job and Selma complies. Linda has gone for the police. Selma, meanwhile, imagines another musical number full of forgiveness and reconciliation.

As the police sirens whine in the distance, Jeff comes for Selma and at her instructions, drives to a place in the woods. Selma leaves Jeff and makes her way alone, following a guide rope to the eye clinic. She successfully deposits her hard fought savings with Dr. Pokorny (Udo Kier) to ensure Gene’s operation.

Jeff, oblivious to the scene at Bill and Linda’s, takes Selma to her final rehearsal for 'The Sound of Music.' Samuel alerts the police and Selma is taking into custody.

At her trial, the prosecutor presents Selma as scheming and selfish. She is accused of exaggerating her handicap. Her story of working to support her elderly father in Czechoslovakia (which she invented to protect Gene from the truth about his eyesight) is exposed as a lie. Everything she offers in her own defense is dismissed. Selma is sent to death row, but not before she invents a courtroom number in which her imaginary father, the musical comedy star Olrich Novy (Joel Grey), does a tap routine on the judge’s bench.

Kathy and Jeff make futile attempts to persuade Selma to enter a new plea. Selma, however, is unwilling to spend Gene’s money on her own defense. Instead, she passes the time alone in her cell listening for any sounds that will distract her from the inevitable.

When the day arrives, the good hearted prison warden, Brenda (Siobhan Fallon) helps Selma to make her last walk with dignity. Paralyzed by fear, together with Brenda, Selma creates the beat for the finale.

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