Cher is magical and electric, Winona Ryder enchanting and funny and Christina Ricci adorable and engaging in this hilarious and heart-warming portrait of a 1960's single-parent family trying to adjust to each other's growing independence.
Charlotte (Ryder) is an adolescent girl torn between her blossoming passions for a handsome caretaker (Michael Schoeffling)... and her desire to be a nun (a tough calling for a girl who's Jewish). Complicating her already precarious teen angst is a little sister (Ricci), a determined would-be swimmer she affectionately calls "fishhead", and their mother (Cher), a non-traditional, sexy, flamboyant woman who relocates them to a new town every time she causes a hint of scandal... which is often.
But even as their personal styles clash, these three incredibly different individuals begin to see that nothing... not even a life-threatening tragedy... can tear apart the bonds of family.