For more than thirty years, Edie and Richard Middlestein shared a solid family life in the suburbs of Chicago. But now things are splintering apart. Edie is obsessed with food - and if she doesn't stop, she won't have much longer to live. When Richard abandons his wife, it's up to the next generation to take control. Robin, their schoolteacher daughter, is determined that her father pay for leaving Edie. Benny, an easy-going family man, just wants to smooth things over. And his wife Rachelle, a whippet-thin perfectionist, is intent on saving her mother-in-law's life. Through it all, they wonder: do Edie's devastating choices rest on her shoulders alone, or are others at fault, too?