Plot
Philippa Mackenzie was once a normal 13-year-old kid with a happy life, but she becomes lonely when her dad Ted Mackenzie and brother Chad Mackenzie, die in a plane crash, and she has to live with a clinically depressed mom.
‘Pip’ and Ophelia are currently residents in a rest home, Safe Harbour, by the Pacific Ocean, in San Francisco. Her mother, Ophelia Mackenzie, overcome with grief and survivor's guilt, loses appetite for food and sleeps most of her time away.
Ophelia, a widowed French woman, remains fiercely loyal to the late Ted, who was a professor at an American college; he was a genius at work, but a lackluster husband; and her son, Chad, had mental health challenges.
While walking on the beach with Mousse, her pet dog, Pip meets Matt Bowles, an artist. He sits by the ocean with his painting easel, and paints what he can see of the ocean view, while also using his imagination to embellish.
Pip and Matt become fast friends as he compliments her on her attempts to draw Mousse, giving her pointers on how to better draw the dog’s legs. She keeps coming back to meet him, and one day Ophelia sees them together.
Ophelia angrily accosts Matt and warns him she’ll call the cops on him if he ever talks to Pip again, suspecting Matt of being a pedophile. However, Matt comes back to offer her a proper apology, and the matter is resolved.
It doesn't take long for the easygoing, charming, big-boned Matt to win over Ophelia's heart as well. Pip is especially pleased by this new development; having suffered heartbreak too at the loss of her brother and dad, and having to live with a depressed mom, Ophelia.
Andrea Wilson, Ophelia's best friend at the rest home, had cajoled her to stop being Miss Grieving Little Widow and start a new relationship, which she does with Matt coming over more and more, first for coffee, then dinners.
Matt promises Pip he'll put on a suit and act as her father during her prom, or any other school event.
Matt informs Ophelia he lost his wife, Sally, and his daughter, Vanessa, to a wealthy work colleague, and they now live in Auckland, New Zealand. He stopped his annual visits to them three years ago out of a sense of futility and dwindling visit times. He paints to cope with his emotions about them. One day, while out on a walk on the beach with Matt, Ophelia resuscitates a young surfer who had almost drowned. An exhausted Matt pulled him out of the water. Matt notes Ophelia's skills in life saving despite emotional challenges.
Blake, the therapy instructor at the Safe Harbour rest home, advises Ophelia it would do her good to volunteer at the Wexler Center, a homeless shelter in downtown San Francisco.
Eventually, Pip and Ophelia go back to their home in the city, leaving Matt behind on the beach.
Pip goes back to school, while Ophelia relapses into depression when she goes to her son’s Chad room, in their big, beautiful house, and lies on the bed, avoiding all contact and calls from people like Blake, her therapist.
When Pip comes back from school, and finds this out, she is upset and cries telling her mom not to go back into Chad’s room, and Pip also calls Matt to inform him that “the robot is back”, meaning her mom has gone back to her tuned-out state, which Pip had earlier informed Matt she dislikes.
Matt drives over, bringing his personal antidote to sadness, “silly” gifts, -rabbit shaped flip flops- wine and food, and plays loud music. Matt also tells Ophelia that she is skilled at helping others and she needs to lean into this. As the three of them bond, Ophelia eventually gets the strength to drive over to interview for an office job at the Wexler Centre, which she succeeds in getting.
At the Wexler Centre, a Navy SEAL, Lorraine and two ex-cops pressure her into joining them out on the field twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday nights. They reassure her the only danger is from dirty needles. On these nights they either bring the homeless into the shelter or provide them with welfare supplies. The homeless are mostly young people stuck in a vicious cycle, which will involve drug use, crime and more time sleeping on the streets. The Wexler Centre field agents like having Ophelia on board. However, Matt is displeased with this new development, finding it a bit extreme on Ophelia’s side given her current emotional state.
Matt’s daughter Vanessa shows up at his beach house, telling him she had difficulty finding his address. Matt is glad to meet her after a long hiatus. He'd missed her; and had painted her portrait off a photo, Sally his ex- and her mom, had sent. He's also puzzled since Sally sends him Xmas cards annually and therefore knows his address and should have given it to Vanessa. After a talk, he finds out that Sally also never gave Vanessa any of the letters he wrote her.
Out of the blue, Sally calls Matt and sets up a meeting in a local hotel. When Matt shows up, she informs him her new wealthy husband passed on, and she tries to get him drunk, so that they end up sleeping together and revive their relationship, now that she has a lot of money. Matt sees through her ploy, informs Sally he has made new friends, and leaves her after a chaste kiss; telling her they can only ever be friends. Sally gets angry at this and throws her martini glass at the closed door behind Matt after he has left.
At the Mackenzie home, Ophelia has finally come to a stage where she is comfortable getting rid of Ted’s and Chad’s things. When she puts on one of Ted’s coats, she feels a letter inside one of the pockets. She opens it to read it recognizing Andrea Wilson’s name and handwriting. Andrea had written Ted to manipulate him into believing his family problems were Ophelia’s fault, and to request him to divorce Ophelia and marry her instead, and to inform him she was pregnant with William.
An indignant Ophelia storms into Andrea’s house, confronts her about the letter, and when Andrea shamefully agrees, ends their relationship.
Feeling she is finished with the grieving process, she volunteers for an extra night with the field agents.
Matt’s worst fears are confirmed when a mentally unstable homeless man grabs her from behind, and pulls out a gun when the field agents try to get him to let go, throwing her on the ground and shooting her thrice. She is taken to hospital in a critical condition. A bullet existed her neck, another passed through a lung and just missed the spine. A third passed through her ovary.
Matt and Pip arrive at the hospital breathless, to find all the field agents there. A nurse informs them she is being stabilized, and they’ll know whether she'll fully recover in the morning. They are all anxious, until she makes it through the morning. Weak, she quits her job. The Wexler Centre no longer accepts volunteer field agents, and all field agents must report to duty armed for service.
Overjoyed on her mom’s recovery, Pip pressures Matt to propose to her right there and then in the hospital ward on her bed, which he does. She accepts.
As she recuperates at home, who should drop by but the notorious Andrea Wilson. She sports a head scarf, and a hospital issued walking cane. She has cancer and is dying. In tears she acknowledges that she and Ted took advantage of Ophelia’s forgiving nature. However, due to her impending demise, she has one final request to Ophelia; that she takes care of Andrea and Ted ’s son, William, when Andrea is dead. Ophelia magnanimously accepts, and they hug.
Ophelia and Matt wed on the beach. To the question by the wedding officiator to Ophelia “Will you take this man…”, Pip cheekily shouts “I do!”, and Vanessa smiles.
