When beautiful, young Rebecca Lott (Elizabeth Perkins) is unexpectedly widowed, she is left shell-shocked, confused and lonely — until her best friend Sylvie (Whoopi Goldberg), younger sister Lucy (Gwyneth Paltrow) and ex-stepmother Alberta (Kathleen Turner) all arrive to provide support.

When, for Rebecca’s birthday, Alberta hires a house painter (Jon Bon Jovi) to “spruce up her siding”, the four women — the widow, the virgin, the divorcee and the wife — bound together by a single tragic event — are liberated by a single, sexy house painter who inspires unforeseen passion within themselves and unexpected compassion for each other. And they discover that letting go of something is sometimes a whole lot better than holding on to nothing at all.