Beneath the Swirling Sky

Twelve-year-old Vincent, a boy from Los Angeles, has sworn off art after a humiliating school art fair in fifth grade, where classmates mocked a painting he had spent weeks creating. His mother, Artemisia, an art teacher, secretly arranges for Vincent and his six-year-old adopted sister, Lili, to spend spring break at the remote Texas ranch of their great-uncle Leo, an art conservator, while the parents go on a cruise. Artemisia hopes the visit will rekindle Vincent's love of painting, but Vincent has no intention of cooperating.

At the ranch, Vincent meets Georgia, his second cousin, a homeschooled girl his age who travels constantly with her parents. He notices his mother react with alarm to Georgia's presence and overhears whispered fragments about "traveling" and being "involved." Uncle Leo's house is covered with paintings by famous artists, and one upstairs bedroom is locked. Uncle Leo hints at family secrets tied to a tragedy ten years earlier, when Vincent's grandparents and his mother's sister died in a house fire.

That night, Vincent finds the locked door ajar. Inside sits The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, pulsing with energy. When he reaches toward it, the room tips, and he spirals into the painting's three-dimensional world. Georgia is already there. She explains that Vincent has "Traveled," a hereditary ability allowing certain family members to step into paintings and experience the world as the artist imagined it. She leads him into the Corridor, a dark hallway linking all of a single artist's works as glowing windows. Each painting also contains a back window connecting to wherever the physical canvas hangs in the real world. Despite a rush of wonder, Vincent insists he will not return.

The next afternoon, Lili vanishes. Vincent and Georgia find Lili's toy bunny inside The Starry Night and confront Uncle Leo, who reveals the larger conflict: Travelers who use their gift for good belong to a secret society called the Restorationists, dedicated to protecting and restoring art. An opposing group, the Distortionists, steals art and subtly alters paintings from within, turning art meant to inspire into tools of hatred and fear. Ten years earlier, the Distortionists massacred most Restorationist families. With Georgia's parents off-grid on a mission, Uncle Leo gives Vincent his old tool kit and sends the cousins to follow Lili's trail.

In the Corridor, Georgia explains that recently Traveled-through paintings emit a faint glow called the Luminescence. A panicked mistake transports them to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, where Vincent spots Lili being carried away by masked figures but cannot reach her. The cousins track the Luminescence through several paintings, fixing Distortions along the way, until Georgia deduces that the kidnappers used a painting stolen in 1989 as the gateway to their hideout.

Inside the stolen painting, they encounter Ravi, one of the Lady's trusted young operatives, who claims to have been caring for Lili after "the Lady" dropped her off. Following his directions through the facility, they find cells holding roughly twenty captive children. Vincent finds Lili, but Ravi arrives with a guard, and Vincent is shocked unconscious by a stun stick.

Vincent wakes in a cell. The facility operates as a militarized school where a teacher lectures that art equals power: the power to steal, influence minds, and control societies. During an art session, captives must copy The Potato Eaters, a van Gogh painting; despite his refusal to paint, Vincent's body remembers his mother's techniques, and his reproduction wins. He is escorted to meet the Lady, who looks exactly like his mother but introduces herself as Adelaide, Artemisia's twin sister, who supposedly died in the fire. Adelaide reveals that a Distortionist boyfriend manipulated her into betraying the Restorationists and orchestrated the fire that killed her parents. She struck out on her own, claiming to rescue children lost in paintings, and now offers to train Vincent as an "Artist," someone with the rare Gift of creating Travelable paintings and altering realities within them. She warns him not to reveal her identity to Georgia.

In a private session, Adelaide instructs Vincent to paint freely. His suppressed rage pours out in a terrifying dragon that possesses the magnetic pull of a Travelable painting. Adelaide declares she will make him the most powerful Artist in a generation. Staring at the dragon, Vincent realizes Adelaide would reshape him in her own image. He tucks the paint-covered brush into his back pocket and resolves to escape.

Using black ink from training, Vincent incapacitates Ravi, frees Georgia and Lili, and they frame The Potato Eaters to create a gateway. Georgia navigates them through a different artist's Corridor to cut off their Luminescence trail, and they reach home through a Norman Rockwell painting Uncle Leo personally owns.

Lili is devastated they left the other children behind. Vincent discovers that The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt, stolen in the 1989 Gardner Museum heist, connects to a framed seascape in Adelaide's room. Learning Adelaide plans to sell the Rembrandt within days, he and Georgia plan a return mission, carrying a pocket-sized miniature painting from Uncle Leo's collection as their escape gateway.

To avoid Adelaide's surveillance, Georgia routes them through the National Gallery in London, borrowing a canoe from one painting before entering Rembrandt's Corridor. Inside The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, massive waves batter their canoe. When it springs a leak, Vincent uses a brush and paints to seal the hole and paint away the flooding water, confirming his rare ability as an Artist. The storm ceases, depicting the Biblical miracle of Jesus calming the sea. Vincent locks eyes with the calm figure and feels utterly seen, his failures exposed yet met with warmth rather than judgment. A wave pushes their canoe to the window of Adelaide's room.

Inside the facility, they free all the captive children and guide them through the miniature painting. Ravi seizes the miniature, however, and summons Adelaide. Georgia arrives and is hurt to discover Vincent has been hiding Adelaide's identity. They pursue Adelaide into a van Gogh painting and fall into a booby-trapped hole. Georgia catches the edge with one hand and grips Vincent with the other.

Vincent tells Georgia to trust him and let go. She releases his hand, and he plummets, but using the pocketed brush, he paints handholds into the wall, stopping his fall. He paints a safety net and a ladder using forced perspective, exploiting the fact that a painting's depth is an illusion on a flat surface. Climbing out, he paints restraints around Adelaide, binding her. Ravi surrenders The Potato Eaters, and Adelaide and Ravi vanish while Georgia climbs to safety.

Back at Uncle Leo's ranch, the FBI takes custody of the sixteen rescued children to locate their families. Georgia's parents arrive through a painting, followed by Vincent's parents, home early from their cruise. Vincent tells them most of the story, omitting Adelaide's identity. Georgia reveals Vincent is an Artist, a Gift that has not appeared in the family for generations. Vincent asks Uncle Leo to train him as a Restorationist, explaining he quit painting out of fear he would never be good enough but now understands that is not the point of art. His mother tearfully agrees, acknowledging that hiding the world of Traveling from him failed to protect him. In a quiet final moment, Lili hands Vincent a pencil and asks him to draw with her. He takes it, embracing art as a gift rather than a source of fear.