Burstyn plays Ellen Brewer, the head of a multi-generational household. Brewer is an iconclastic writer-in-residence at a Baltimore college. She holds seminars in the brownstone she shares with her hyperactive mother Sydney (Elaine Strich), her divorced 25-year-old daughter Molly (Megan Mullally) and her 5-year-old grandson, Nick (Jesse R. Tendler).