It’s 1952 . . a time when many choices for women were limited, if theirs to make at all.

Emma is a young housewife living a seemingly perfect life with her husband Frank during the post-World War II economic boom. Yet beneath that idyllic veneer is a sobering reality: Emma, stricken with rheumatic fever as a teenager, faces pressure from her husband to start a family even though bearing a child may very well kill her. When Frank escalates his demands, Emma refuses.

Fast-forward fifty years where Maddie, divorced and living an unfulfilling life, stands to inherit her father’s sizable estate. While settling his affairs, she finds a hidden photograph of a beautiful young woman with an inscription reading, “My Emma, Summer 1946.” Maddie does not recognize the woman and is driven to understand why her father had secreted away the photograph.

Love, Lizzie is a stunning narrative about choice, and its potential effects on a woman’s health, life and soul.