The life of a teenager (Kathryn Erbe), in her last year of high school in Charleston, South Carolina, is upended when her mother (Jill Clayburgh) leaves her father (Albert Finney) and cuts all contact with her family. Things get even more complicated when her older sister (Suzy Amis) shows up with a new husband (Kyle MacLachlan) and a pregnancy she's bitter and ambivalent about, and moves back in. They all spend the rest of the summer trying to come to grips with their lives.