After polio threatens his political career in the early 1920s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Kenneth Branagh) desperately searches for a cure to his newly acquired disease, hoping to regain the use of his legs. He learns of a promising spa in Warm Springs, Ga., and travels there, only to find it dilapidated. Determined to overcome polio, Roosevelt invests in the spa's revitalization and sets about recovering, aided by the support of his wife (Cynthia Nixon) and physical therapist (Kathy Bates).