Based on a true story, Jack Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) is a world renowned writer and professor. Unmarried, he leads a gentleman's life filled by intellectual pursuits, remaining untouched by any great passion until he meets Joy Gresham (Debra Winger). Joy is a feisty, abrasive New York divorcee whose sharp-edged, no-nonsense attitudes take Lewis by surprise. Bursting unexpectedly into Lewis' world, Joy shocks his associates and awakens him to deep emotions he had written about, but never experienced. Slowly he opens his heart to this woman, and their romance shatters the walls of his cloistered world. But life is made up of delicate balances, and Lewis must confront a terrible truth: that a heart awakened to great love is also opened to great pain.