Bessie (Diane Keaton) and Lee (Meryl Streep) are sisters who have remained apart for nearly 20 years due to radically different personalities and life paths. Bessie remained in Florida to care for their ill, bed-ridden father (Hume Cronyn), and Lee moved to Ohio to marry and have a family. But Bessie's doctor (Robert De Niro) has informed her she has leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. Bessie's prognosis and Lee's troubled son (Leonardo DiCaprio) create an unexpected family reunion.