- A struggling widow falls in love with an illiterate short-order cook whom she teaches to read and write in her kitchen each night.
- Stanley Cox is an illiterate short-order cook who has never taken a chance at love. Iris King is a newly widowed factory worker who has vowed never to love again. Still grieving eight months after her husband's death, she lives from paycheck to paycheck and raises two children. To make ends meet, she rents out space to her sister and brother-in-law who have financial and marital problems as well. Her daughter seeks escape through the company of boys resulting in an out of wedlock pregnancy, which makes matters worse. However, as their friendship slowly blossoms and Iris helps Stanley learn to read, his strong yet gentle kindness helps mend her broken heart. And where two lonely strangers stood trapped within the past, Stanley and Iris can now begin a new chapter of their lives - together.—MGM/UA Home Video
- Iris King (Jane Fonda), still grieving eight months after the death of her husband, works at a commercial bakery in Connecticut and lives in a high-crime area. She lives from paycheck from paycheck as she raises her two children, Kelly (Martha Plimpton) and Richard (Harley Cross). To make ends meet, she rents out space to her sister Sharon (Swoosie Kurtz) and brother-in-law Joe (Jamey Sheridan) who have financial and marital problems as well. With money already tight in the family, Kelly seeks escape through the company of boys resulting in an out of wedlock pregnancy, which makes matters worse.
Iris makes the acquaintance in Stanley Cox (Robert De Niro), a cook in the bakery's lunchroom cafeteria, when he comes to her help after she has her purse stolen on the bus and gives chase to the thief who eventually gets away. But as their friendship develops, she begins noticing peculiarities about Stanley - he doesn't own a car (he instead bicycles wherever he needs to go), he lives with and supports his elderly father (Feodor Chaliapin), becomes frustrated when asked to sign his name, doesn't believe in opening Chinese fortune cookies, and cannot pick out a specific item from a shelf. Iris soon realizes that Stanley can neither read or write, and when she innocently mentions this to the bakery owner, Stanley is fired the next day over food safety and legal concerns, despite being a good cook and model employee.
Afterwards, Stanley is unable to obtain any steady work forcing him to move in a garage and put his father in a shabby retirement home. His father dies in the home several weeks after admission, upsetting Stanley over the fact that his illiteracy preventing him from caring his father properly. Stanley seeks out Iris and asks her to teach him to read, explaining that his traveling-salesman father moved him all over the country when Stanley was a child, bouncing him to nearly 50 different schools in total, resulting in Stanley developing no reading or writing skills from this lack of educational stability. Iris begins giving Stanley basic reading lessons and he gradually grows close to her and her family. It is during one of these reading exercises that he tells her that he has wanted to be intimate with her since they first met, but Iris is hesitant.
Iris tests Stanley's developing reading skills by making him a map and having her meet at a certain street corner in 15 minutes, but Stanley gets hopelessly lost. Hours later, he reaches the corner where Iris is frantic and still waiting. Frustrated, Stanley marches off without saying a word, his interest in learning to read gone. Iris visits him at his garage home and attempts to persuade him to continue learning to read. Looking around, she sees a large mechanical project that Stanley is working on, as he invent things as a hobby. He has a designed a cake-cooling machine that can outperform anything in the commercial marketplace. Iris is immensely impressed and Stanley reveals that a local company has shown interest in his invention and even offered him a job. Stanley agrees to begin reading again with Iris, and eventually learns to write short sentences. Stanley surprises Iris by cooking a massive dinner for her and her family, and the two of them begin to grow close again.
After Kelly has her baby, Iris is displeased when she drops out of school to work at the bakery, as she doesn't want her daughter wasting her life in the kind of dead-end job she herself is in. Stanley and Iris decided to make love, but Iris is still clinging to her late husband's memory. This threatens their budding relationship further and they don't see each other for some time. Not prepared to give up on Iris the way she didn't give up on him, Stanley finally goes to see her. Iris hands him an unmailed letter she wrote to him, and Stanley surprises her by reading this aloud nearly perfect. Now ready to begin letting go of the past, Iris accompanies Stanley to a fancy hotel where they order room service and spend the night together.
Stanley soon moves to Detroit for a new, well-paying job he has been offered, his inventing ability finally having paid off. Several months later, back in Connecticut, Iris is walking home carrying groceries when an expensive car pulls up next to her and she is surprised to see Stanley behind the wheel. Stanley tells her that he has been given a raise and is looking to buy a large six-bedroom house in Detroit - and that he wants her to move there with him as his wife. Iris accepts. As they walk into her house, Iris asks if they could remove a wall for another bathroom, Stanley replies "Anything is possible".
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