Joanna Drayton’s unannounced early return from a Hawaiian holiday causes a stir when she brings to her childhood upper-class home her new fiancé, John Prentice: a widowed, black physician. Joanna’s parents—newspaper publisher Matt Drayton and his wife art gallery owner Christina Drayton are purported liberals who have instilled in her the idea of racial equality. But to her surprise, Joanna’s parents are deeply upset that she is planning to marry a black man. The Draytons’ black maid, Tille, is just as horrified, suspecting that John is trying to “get above himself” by marrying a white woman. What was intended to be a sit-down steak dinner for two turns into a meet-the-in-laws dinner party, and during the pre-dinner period, John, Joanna and her parents have to work through their differences.