Anita Bergman (a phenomenally effective Sally Field) is under hospice care as she faces her last days of dying from gastrointestinal cancer. Knowing that she has little time left she calls upon her four children to return home to North Carolina for goodbyes. Her children are a mixed lot: Keith (Ben Chaplin) is a Zen-influenced California man who has decided to video his mother for posterity; Barry (Thomas Cavanagh) is a workaholic who attempts to piece together time for this inconvenient disruption in his work routine; Matthew (Glenn Howerton) is the baby of the family dominated by a tactless wife whom the rest of the family detest; Emily (a luminous Julianne Nicholson) is the sole sister who has collected all the books on the dying process for her brothers' education and is the stalwart one who holds the family together. Anita divorced the children's father and remarried a quiet man Jim (James Murtaugh) who is essentially ignored or tolerated by the children. Anita shares memories, both tender and hilarious, about her life with her family, and as the hospice nurse Carol (Michael Hyatt) tenderly leads the children through the instructions regarding final care, the four bond again, become more accepting of their disparate directions, share some very funny conversations to relieve the gloom of the event, and interact more than they have since childhood. By the time of the inevitable event come each of the children and their current father have found vulnerabilities and expanded the tokens of love left to them by Anita, now able to carry out Anita's wishes with a modicum of grace and a lot of warmth.