A young man (Robert Duvall) in the 1940s raises a family in Alabama. His wife (Tippi Hedren) leaves him and moves to Ehgland. She meets and marries an Englishman (John Hurt) and stays there for many years. When the wife dies, she leaves a request to be brought back to Alabama to be buried, and at that point, the man hasn't seen her in nearly thirty years. The two families, her original family she abandoned, and her English family, meet and make an attempt to adjust to each other, with uneven results.