Plot summary

In 1995, the Jacobs family is a tight-knit Italian-Jewish family. Parents Pat and Alan have a marriage that seems to be struggling because of Pat's disinterest in her husband even though Alan tries Pat just gives him cold shoulder. Elder daughter Dana is in a long-term relationship with her fiancé Ben that has hit a rut. Younger child Ali is still in high school and more interested in going to raves and getting high than applying to colleges.Returning from a rave one night and trying to do her homework Ali unlocks a file containing her father's love-notes to a mysterious woman named "C".Around the same time Dana runs into an ex, Nate, at a party is at with Ben and she flirts with Ben. Sometime later she decides to blow off her social obligations with Ben and take a day to herself. She runs into Nate and the two have sex.After being confronted by her parents over her behavior Ali runs away to their family's country home to have sex with her boyfriend. She is confronted by Dana who has gone there to get away from Ben. The two end up having a girls' weekend where Ali tells Dana about her doubt that their father might be having an affair even if it is just emotional affair he should be punished and out of guilt Dana tells Ali that she actually cheated on Ben.Dana decides to move back home to "support" Ali and help her find C however she continues her affair with Nate and acts irresponsibly, blowing off Ben. The sisters hit a dead end, but at a staged reading of their father's play they meet Carla, an actress, and believe she is the C of the letters. Dana is hypocritically upset but when she mentions it to Nate he blows her off laughing that monogamy doesn't exist and causing her to end the affair. After a conversation with her father where she tells him she's not sure about the direction of her life, Dana begins to reach out to Ben once more realizing how selfish she has been and how unfair she had been to Ben who loved her.On Halloween Dana goes to meet up with Ben but reveals to him she cheated with Nate causing him to leave her. Ali then takes Dana to a drug deal where Dana convinces her not to buy the drugs, but the two get picked up by the police anyway. That same night Pat goes out to a bar and flirts with a man but returns home and has sex with Alan. She then reveals that she knows about Alan's affair with Carla while Alan reminds her how she was the one who for many years has been appalled by even his touch. Pat and Alan's fight is interrupted by a phone call from jail where Alan goes to pick up his daughters. Returning home, the sisters find Pat smoking and crying. She reveals the affair to them and the two of them hug her in comfort.Dana pursues Ben and begs him to take her back. Alan moves out of the family home but vows to stay a part of the family. At Ali's birthday party the family reunite to celebrate.