A Polish-Jewish family comes to the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century. There, the family and their children try to make themselves a better future in the so-called promised land.

Blessed with a keen sense of smell and cursed with a philandering pornographer husband, a parasitic mother, and a pair of delinquent children, the long-suffering Francine Fishpaw turns to the bottle as her life falls apart -- until deliverance appears in the form of a hunk named Todd Tomorrow.