Seventeen-year-old Lucille (Kathryn Erbe) is confident that her Charleston family is immune to the problems besetting other clans. Then her middle-aged mother Helen (Jill Clayburgh) walks out of their lives. Warren (Albert Finney), stunned by his wife's exit, wanders around the house in a stupor. The highly responsible Lucille drops out of school to look after her father. They are unsuccessful in tracking down Helen.
Then Rae (Suzy Amis), Lucille's older sister, arrives home with her new husband Billy (Kyle MacLachlan), a history teacher. She's five months pregnant and very unhappy about it. Both Rae and Lucille are shocked when their father takes up with Vera (Piper Laurie), a hair stylist with a zest for life.
Although most people wish it were not so, the traditional family has practically disappeared in America. As the nuclear unit is reconfigured, children are shaken to the core. Some are made dizzy by the changes; others are transformed into instant adults. Many youth find both impulses at war within themselves as they come of age.
That certainly is the case with Lucille in this beautiful screen adaptation of Josephine Humphreys's 1978 novel. Director Bruce Beresford (Black Robe) gently traces the cautious steps in Lucille's sentimental education as she reexamines her core feelings about family, character, and marriage. In her coming of age, she realizes what it is like to be "rich in love" and capable of weathering the changes which suddenly come blowing through her life. This is a very satisfying movie, one in which all the surprises are natural and enlightening.