A family weekend is fraught with emotional landmines for mercurial and sensitive Lynn (Ellen Barkin) as she arrives at her parents' Annapolis estate for the marriage of her estranged eldest son Dylan, accompanied by her three younger children (Ezra Miller, Kate Bosworth, Daniel Yelsky). Lynn's hopes for a joyful reunion are crushed as her wry but troubled middle son Elliot lobs verbal grenades at his mother and her relatives while daughter Alice, a fragile young woman, fights valiantly to keep her longtime demons under control.
The weekend quickly unravels as Lynn demands to be heard by her aloof, disdainful mother (Ellen Burstyn), ailing distant father (George Kennedy) and ever-judgmental sisters, but most especially by her ex-husband Paul (Thomas Haden Church) and his hot-tempered second wife Patty (Demi Moore). Confronted, oftentimes hilariously, with the deeply painlul, half-buried truths that have given rise to the family's primal web of resentments and recriminations, Lynn struggles to maintain her equilibrium as her best attempts at reconciliation veer quickly off course.