Virginia Woolf (Kidman), in a suburb of London in the early 1920s, is battling insanity as she begins to write her first great novel, Mrs Dalloway. A wife and mother in post-World War II Los Angeles, Laura Brown (Moore) is reading Mrs Dalloway and finding it so revolutionary that she begins to consider making a devastating change in her life. Clarissa Vaughan (Streep), a present day version of Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, lives in New York City and is in love with a friend (Ed Harris - A Beautiful Mind) who is dying of AIDS. Also starring John C. Reilly (Gangs Of New York), Claire Danes (Brokendown Palace) and Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense) - their engaging stories intertwine until they come together in a surprising moment of shared recognition.