Timid Creatures

London suburb Croydon, 1964. Helen Hansford is single and in her thirties. To the great disappointment of her middle-class parents, she works as an art therapist at Westbury Park Psychiatric Hospital and begins a tumultuous affair with her colleague Gil,... an energetic but married doctor. One spring day, they receive a signal from the police. In a Victorian house a few miles from the city, a 37-year-old man named William Tapping, with a beard down to his waist, has been discovered. He does not speak. He lives in this house with his elderly aunt, who is taken to the hospital, where she soon dies. No one knows why William was kept locked up for decades, and none of the neighbors have ever seen him. Helen begins to work with William and realizes that he is not only of sound mind but also a talented artist. However, as she tries to unravel the mystery of this strange man, her own carefully constructed life falls apart, opening up new horizons for her.