Marriage of a midlife, middle-class, childless couple is in a rut. Sophie has become depressed, frigid and slightly paranoid and Otto is stuck in optimistic denial. Things escalate at their summer cottage, but no one dares call it quits.

Sophie and Otto Bentwood are set in their ways. And unsettled in their hearts. They're Desperate Characters, trapped in a marriage that no longer works... yet unable to break free. In a performance widely cited as a career breakthrough, Shirley MacLaine portrays Sophie in this compelling grown-up drama that, in its own jolting way, is a love story.—Anonymous