Miriam Swanson is thoroughly provoked and she doesn't mind letting you know. Twenty years ago her husband Charles, a powerful attorney with one of the last remaining white shoe law firms in New York, dumped her for a younger woman nearly half her age. Obviously it happens all the time and it's not exactly news, but what's fascinating is to watch Miriam evolve from pathetic to spectacular. Perfectly proper Miriam's great metamorphosis results from the arrival of a little red neck school teacher, Liz, from Nowhere, Alabama. Liz is Miriam's tenant along with Kevin, a 50 something gay man who is Miriam's best friend. Liz is everything that Miriam is not: young and thin. They constantly clash. Then finally, she meets a man named Harrison who changes her into a gal named Mellie.