A woman dealing with an unexpected death has to help her friends with their own crises in this comedy-drama. Rebecca Lott (
Elizabeth Perkins) gets an unpleasant surprise while waiting for her husband to return from his daily jog -- he was hit by a car and instantly killed. A handful of Rebecca's friends and relatives rally around her, including her close friend and neighbor Sylvie (
Whoopi Goldberg), her former stepmother Alberta (
Kathleen Turner), and her younger sister Lucy (
Gwyneth Paltrow), but she has a hard time accepting the fact that she's now a widow (or, as she prefers to put it, "the 'W' word"). It also seems that the women trying to offer Rebecca emotional support could use some of their own; Sylvie's marriage is hanging by a thread, and Lucy is depressed and cynical owing to her inexperience with men. But romance begins to find its way back into Rebecca's life when a handsome younger man (
Jon Bon Jovi) -- hired to paint the house -- takes a shine to her. Moonlight and Valentino was based on a play written by Ellen Simon, daughter of comic playwright
Neil Simon. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide