A family is shattered over the daughter's forced abortion. As she rebels against her family and their traditional, authoritarian, typical-of-the-time norms, she is hospitalized and otherwise mistreated.
In a small Oklahoma town in 1964, the rivalry between two gangs, the poor Greasers and the rich Socs, heats up when one gang member accidentally kills a member of the other.
Divorced single mom Mildred Pierce decides to open a restaurant business, which tears at the already-strained relationship with her ambitious elder daughter, Veda.