Manny (Ray Liotta) and his seven-year-old daughter Molly (Tina Majorino) have lost the light of their lives — the one woman who loved them and made them feel truly alive. Now they are walking zombies of grief. Manny can't stop watching old movies of the family and Molly has lapsed into silence, a safe place to be when nothing much matters anymore.

Afer a bizarre experience with their first housekeeper (Joan Cusack), Manny hires Corrina (Whoopi Goldberg), a graduate of Fisk who desperately wants the job. Although accident prone, she has an immediate nonverbal connection with Molly. Corrina slowly draws the child out of silence with a trip to the car wash (they stay in the vehicle) and a demonstration of magic (she switches traffic lights from red to green simply by blowing at them). Corrina also convinces Molly that she was in no way responsible for her mother's death and that, in fact, her mother is probably waving at her from heaven if she'd only look.

Corrina, who lives with her sister (Jennifer Lewis), still works as a housekeeper at another place. She brings Molly into the inner circle of those who are most important in her life. She also reaches out to Manny, who writes jingles for an advertising firm, and helps him out of his vocational funk.

Corrina, Corrina is an astonishingly good movie about the wrenching and chaotic emotions of grief. This semi-autobiographical film, written, produced, and directed by Jessie Nelson, gives Whoopi Goldberg a plum role as Manny and Molly's companion through the darkness. Corrina is one of those unforgettable souls whose energy, life force, and inner light is so powerful that it can lift the spirits of others.

The message of this heartwarming film is that time alone does not heal. It is loyalty to life that heals. Corrina is a fresh wind who helps set Manny and Molly on a new course. And once on that course, they are drawn into a relationship that none of them would ever have thought possible. Corrina, Corrina salutes the love that takes everyone by surprise.