Birdee Calvert (Sandra Bullock) seems to have it all. She's been married for years to her handsome high school sweetheart Bill (Michael Paré), and has a brilliant and sensitive child. But when her picture perfect life comes crashing down around her, Birdee must start over. With no place else to turn, the former beauty queen, along with daughter Bernice (Mae Whitman), heads back home ... to Smithville, Texas. There Birdee's life becomes even more complicated as she tries to deal with a mother (Gena Rowlands) she must get to really know for the first time, a daughter who desperately misses her father, and the prospect of a new romance with an old schoolmate, Justin Matisse (Harry Connick, Jr.). But as Birdee undertakes her emotionally-charged journey, she begins to find the strength to reclaim her life, rediscover her family and return to something she had almost given up on ... hope.