Loretta Castorini is a 38-year-old widow who works for a bookmaker in New York. She lives with her Italian-American family, which includes her plumber dad Cosmo, her long-suffering mother Rose and her grandfather. Slightly superstitious, Loretta believes her first marriage, which ended when her husband was hit by a truck, was doomed because the marriage took place in a registry office and her father didn't give her away. When her longstanding boyfriend Johnny, proposes to her, she accepts, although she is not totally enamoured with him. But before the wedding, Johnny must travel to Sicily, where his mother is dying. While he is away, Loretta meets Johnny's brother, Ronny and they instantly fall in love with each other. The two brothers could not be more different: where Johnny is unprepossessing and dependable, offering mundane security, Ronny is a vibrant, often wild force, brooding over his past and angry about the future. Charming, memorable love story which captures perfectly the Italian-American milieu in which it is set and which features tour-de-force performances from its two female stars, an Oscar-winning Cher as the young widow caught between the dependable security of her boyfriend and the captivating wildness of his brother, and Olympia Dukakis as her mother.