The film opens on December 6, 1941, as Kay Walsh (Goldie Hawn, Town & Country, The Banger Sisters) and her husband Jack (Ed Harris, The Hours, A Beautiful Mind) are content with their idyllic and peaceful suburban existence. A day later, America is at war, and Jack, feeling a duty to his country, is quick to enlist, signing up for a position in the Navy. When he finally ships out, Kay is left feeling stranded and bored, with no source of income other than what she is sent by Jack, and no friends of any great significance. So she decides to get a job, and ends up working with a number of other wives in a factory assembling airplane parts and other war-related machinery, the idea of which makes the existing male factory workers uncomfortable, to say the least.