Storyline:
Frances Mayes is a San Francisco based literature professor, literary reviewer and author, who is struggling in writing her latest book. Her outwardly perfect and stable life takes a turn when her husband files for divorce as he wants to marry the woman with who he is having an affair, the infidelity and marital problem of which Frances was unaware. As Frances was supporting him as he was writing his own book, he sues for alimony despite Frances not being wealthy herself. And he wants to keep the house. Frances eventually accepts her best friend Patti's offer of a vacation, a gay tour of Tuscany which Patti and her lesbian partner Grace originally purchased for themselves before Patti found out that she is pregnant. The gift is a means to escape dealing with the divorce, from which Patti feels Frances may never recover emotionally without some intervention. Feeling that Patti's assessment may be correct in that she has too much emotional baggage ever to return to San Francisco, ...