Jerry Lipman (Paul Reiser) is a successful New York City psychiatrist who is diagnosed with leukemia. When he tells his mother, she reveals that he was adopted from a young Catholic girl called Sheila (Dame Julie Walters) in Liverpool, England. Jerry's desperation for a bone marrow transplant leads him to working-class Liverpool to find his mother and see if he has any siblings. Along the way, he finds out more about himself than he knew.