It is during the final months of 1999 that 46-year-old physician Jerri Nielsen (Susan Sarandon) finds herself stranded at the Amundsen-South Pole Research Station along with a tiny staff of researchers and technicians. Although, at first, there is little love lost between the somewhat aloof Nielsen and her more down-to-earth colleagues, a strong bond develops among them as the extreme Antarctic winter progresses. Nielsen, in particular, grows quite close to two of the "Polies": Big John Penny (Aidan Devine) and Claire Furinski (Cynthia Mace).