On the brink of divorce New York ad exec Will, when asked by his 11-year-old daughter how he met her mother, recounts tales of three proto-relationships from his twenties, a time when he was an idealistic graduate working on the 1992 Clinton campaign, as she tries to guess which of the three women became her mother. Was it plain-Jane college sweetheart (Elizabeth Banks)? Ambitious journalist (Rachel Weisz)? Or his slacker friend (Isla Fisher)? Did he chose the right one? Can he straighten things find out more...

It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...