- When a woman learns that her father has passed away, she must confront the past (and the town) she left behind.
- Daniel Madighan and his music band mates gave young Cate a jolly youth in the quaint town of New Kerry, MA, until the death of his wife Marie, which forces him to entrust her to family elsewhere. She grows up to become a lifestyle magazine editor in New York. While preparing her wedding to a medic tycoon, she receives Danny's ashes and his last request, returning to her hometown to scatter them. Grudgingly she does so, discovering her roots. Thus she learns Daniel didn't deserve her disdain and meets handsome, idealistic lawyer Connor Bailey, with whom she falls in love, but for whom she seems unwilling to cancel her society engagement.—KGF Vissers
- Thirty-five year old Manhattan-based Cate Madighan is the successful editor-in-chief of Perfect, the premier lifestyle magazine, which she developed under the leadership of her mentor and now fiancé, the much older media mogul Stewart Wallach. They live the life espoused in the magazine, which includes living clutter-free, even in an emotional sense. That life takes a surprise turn for Cate when she receives in the mail a package from her now deceased father, Daniel Madighan, who she has not seen in twenty-six years. She feels that he abandoned her after her mother died, when he, a shipbuilder, shipped her to live with relatives she did not know as he could not take care of her on his own as he went to a shipbuilding site to earn a living. He always vowed to send for her when he was able, which never happened. Before that time, she had a loving relationship with both her parents as well as happy life in their small seaside town of New Kerry, Massachusetts. The package contains his ashes and his last request for her to scatter them back in New Kerry where her mother is buried, and to have who were then his two best friends and singing partners, Cavanaugh and Donahue, sing "Danny Boy" at the scattering service, the song which they sang at his wife's memorial. Because of her estrangement from her father, Cate is reluctant to carry out this request, ultimately changing her mind if only to appear to be doing what she would tell her readers to do. Her colleagues, including Stewart, know nothing of her past, and as such she tells no one of this task, except her assistant, the efficient Jeffrey Lerner, who she takes to New Kerry with her. The plan is to do what her father wants as quickly as possible to put this part of her life behind her forever, so that she can go back to New York without the burden of her past and move on with her life with Stewart, including continue to prepare for their high-profile wedding in a month, which will be featured in the magazine. But Daniel's request is not as easy as she would like, in part since Cavanaugh and Donohue have themselves had a falling out over an issue they refuse to disclose after Daniel left New Kerry, they who have been bitter enemies since. But as Cate and Jeffrey's time in New Kerry is extended - life there which has largely stood still since her departure twenty-six years ago - Cate may come to terms with what she considered her sad and angry past. That new understanding also is due to her time with Conner Bailey, a man new to New Kerry and who may show Cate that there is a different yet fulfilling and happy life than that presented as Perfect.—Huggo
- It seems that Cate Madighan (Laura Leighton) has it all: a top job as the editor for the Perfect magazine, she is about to marry a New York millionaire (Martin Doyle), and is a big shot in Manhattan. Talisha (Dorly Jean-Louis) a magazine reporter, interviews the couple, and they agree on everything: leading a careful life, not having children or pets, and keeping their works as their number one priority.
Unexpectedly, she receives the ashes of her father, who abandoned her right after her mother's dead. As he was not able to take care of Cate as a child, he sent her to America with some distant relatives. He wants her to spread his ashes in the same place as his late wife. Cate hesitates, and asks for the psychologist's opinion. Finally, she'll return to New Kerry -That's the reason for the Spanish title Retorno a New Kerry, which has nothing to do with the original title.
Anyway, Cate travels with one of her magazine staff, Jeffrey Lerner (Brandon Firla) and doesn't explain to anybody but him what the matter is. They will sleep at Fiona's (actress not listed in cast), her best friend when she was a child. She's married, with three children, and a stranded dog. Everybody asks her why her husband-to-be is not there with her.
Cate has to convince his father's friends to sing at the funeral ceremony, but they are so angry with one another, that they won't even be on speaking terms anymore. She has to follow them from pub to pub, and from there to the New Kerry Fair, where one of them has a stall. With the help of Conner Baily (Sebastian Spence), a lawyer who used to travel all over the world, she convinces them to give out one last performance in his memory.
Meanwhile, Cate eats the traditional food, rides on the basket of Conner's bike, sees a bookshop she memories of, helps Fiona's husband to express his feelings of love towards her, and reads all the letters her father had sent his two friends. There, he expressed his feelings of remorse at having abandoned Cate, inequality at the task of being a lone parent, his loneliness and his impossibility to find a stable job as an engineer.
The ceremony is performed, eventually. Cate returns to her life in New York but Conner follows her there with Fiona's dog. Her would-be hubby almost catches her red-handed with him, and she says that she's changed her life: she wants children, a dog, and to refocus the priorities on her life. Donaghue puts a stop at the wedding immediately, as he doesn't want any changes on the path of life he has designed for them both.
Cate and Donner kiss.
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