A spunky Holocaust survivor journeys down the Mississippi River with her teenage caregiver to fulfill her dying wish of returning home to New Orleans.

Millie Moskowitz has mild Alzheimer's, yet she still possesses an indomitable spirit borne from her childhood in a Nazi death camp and her prodigious musical gifts. That spirit is tested by her decision to flee from her St. Louis retirement community and pursue her dying wish: to return to her childhood home in New Orleans. She is aided in that desire by her teenage caregiver, Halle Franklin, a foster kid who possesses her own musical gifts. Unlike Mille, she has no concept of home and seems more motivated by money than caring for Millie. As they secretly race down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, first in Millie's "grandma car," then in a modern-day steamboat, they face formidable obstacles: a son who wants to put Millie in a memory care unit; a highway patrolman who wants to put Halle in jail; a steamboat captain who wants to put them both in her ship's band; and Millie's dementia which, when stirred by music, triggers her to recover memories of murder and child separation that are hard to witness and seem impossible to overcome.—Mark Robert Donald