This ensemble drama tells three stories simultaneously of women in different times, all drawn upon the writings (or life) of author Virginia Woolf.

First, there's the author herself in 1923, struggling with depression and thoughts of suicide, while writing Mrs. Dalloway.

The other two interlayed stories are that of Laura Brown, a pregnant Los Angeles housewife in 1949 planning a birthday party for her husband who finds that she can't stop reading Mrs. Dalloway, and Clarissa Vaughn (Streep), a modern New York woman throwing a party for her friend and former lover, acclaimed author Richard, dying of AIDS.