An illiterate cook at a company cafeteria tries for the attention of a newly widowed woman. As they get to know one another, she discovers his inability to read. When he is fired, she takes on trying to teach him to read in her kitchen each night.

During the filming in Waterbury, Connecticut, local Vietnam veterans picketed the production, protesting Jane Fonda's controversial anti-war activities of a decade and a half earlier.

Iris:
A girl's best friend is her mama. At least that's what it says on the greeting cards.

Revealing mistakes: In the map-reading exercise, several of the street signs visibly have stickers pasted on them to change the (Toronto) street names.