Fathers and Daughters is a love story between a father and daughter living in New York City. The story moves back and forth between the 1980's where Jake Davis (Russell Crowe), a Pulitzer winning novelist and widower, struggles with mental illness as he tries to raise his 5-year-old daughter, Katie (Amanda Seyfried), and 30-year-old Katie's life in present-day Manhattan where she battles the demons that stem from her troubled childhood.