| Director | Bill Forsyth |
|---|---|
| Budget | £3 million |
| Box office | $5.9 million |
"Mac" MacIntyre is an aspiring executive working for Knox Oil and Gas in Houston, Texas. Felix Happer, the company's eccentric owner, chooses Mac because of his Scottish-sounding surname to acquire Ferness, a village in the Scottish Highlands, to make way for a refinery. Mac, actually of Hungarian extraction, is apprehensive about the assignment, complaining to a co-worker that he would rather handle business over the phone and via telex. Happer, an avid amateur astronomer, tells Mac to watch the sky and to notify him immediately if he sees anything unusual.
Arriving in Scotland, Mac teams up with local Knox representative Danny Oldsen. When they visit a Knox research facility in Aberdeen, Dr. Geddes explains the plan to replace Ferness with the refinery. They also meet marine researcher Marina. Mac spends several days in Ferness, gradually adapting to the slower-paced life and getting to know the residents, most notably hotel owner and accountant Gordon Urquhart and his wife Stella. Mac becomes more and more ambivalent as he presses to close the deal that will demolish the village he has come to love. The villagers are tired of their hard life and are more than eager to sell, though they feign indifference to induce a larger offer. Mac receives encouragement from an unlikely source: Victor, a capitalistic Soviet fishing boat captain who periodically visits his friends in Ferness and checks on his investment portfolio, managed by Gordon.
Danny befriends Marina, who is under the impression that the company is planning to build a marine research centre at Ferness. While watching some grey seals, Danny mentions that sailors used to believe they were mermaids. Marina tells him the sailors were wrong. Later Danny discovers that Marina, who seems more at home in the water than on land, has webbed toes.
As the deal nears completion, Gordon discovers that Ben Knox, an old beachcomber who lives in a driftwood shack on the shore, owns the beach through a grant from the Lord of the Isles to his ancestor. After being offered £750,000, Ben picks up some sand and offers to sell for the same number of pound notes as he has grains of sand in his hand. A suspicious MacIntyre declines, only to be told there could not have been more than ten thousand grains. He tries everything to entice Ben to sell, even offering enough money to buy a similar stretch of any other beach in the world, but Ben is not interested.
Happer arrives, just in time to unknowingly forestall an ugly confrontation between some of the villagers and Ben. When Mac informs him of the snag in the proceedings, he decides to negotiate personally with Ben and, in the process, discovers a kindred spirit. Happer opts to relocate the refinery offshore and set up an astronomical observatory instead. Danny brings up Marina's dream of an oceanographic research facility and suggests combining the two into the "Happer Institute", an idea that Happer enthusiastically embraces. Sent back home to implement the changes, a sombre MacIntyre returns to his apartment in Houston. He pulls from his pocket pebbles and shells and spreads them out on the work surface. The local phone box in Ferness starts ringing.