Imagine the Mary Tyler Moore of her 1970’s show hitting the bottle and losing her job after reading too much Kafka, and you’ll sort of get the idea. Val, a matriarch, comes to live with ...

Imagine the Mary Tyler Moore of her 1970’s show hitting the bottle and losing her job after reading too much Kafka, and you’ll sort of get the idea.

Val, a matriarch, comes to live with her daughter, Jackie. Jackie, recently divorced and having lost custody of her son, takes her mother in willingly but also enlists her in a crusade to convert everyone to a Jehovah’s Witness. The two women comb the neighborhoods with religious magazines, shoring up Jackie’s faith and killing Val’s optimism, not to mention her feet! Val’s other daughter, Maggie, surfaces after a long absence to be told that her mother thinks she’s dead—since Maggie vanished years ago, Jackie just thought it easier to lie. Maggie’s trying to kick her drinking habit and hearing this news doesn’t help. Reacquainted with her slightly surprised mother, Maggie tries to be the ear Val needs when she can’t stand living with either Jackie’s fanatical ways or her newfound zealot boyfriend, Chris. Val runs away, but Maggie can’t take her in. The hilarious yet dark situations continue as: Jackie develops questions about her faith, and her new husband; Maggie finds sobriety; and grand- mother Val hangs out to help her other grandson, Michael, through it all.