When Jack Scanlan (Jack Warden) passes away just before telling his son, Johnny (Bob Hoskins) what was really important in life, Johnny begins to wonder if he's let life pass him by. With the funeral as backdrop, all of the Scanlans appear, each with an interesting situation. One of Johnny's sisters is divorced, but hasn't told anyone, the sister, who is a nun, is now into liberation theology and has an illegal immigrant with her, and Tony (Jayce Bartok) is fighting for control of his father's union. Johnny and Terry (Pamela Reed) (the divorced sister) think that they may have found true love in the chaos (though what Johnny's wife thinks of it is up for grabs) as Johnny tries to make some kind of sense out of the various strains in his family.