It's 1974. Plenty of women have jobs in America, even in the heartland, but few have careers. A career was what Polly Wainwright expected and yearned for when she started out, a career in film, using all her abilities to make documentary films. A decade on, she's learned the hard truth: adult life means compromise. Her job as a picture editor with a prestigious publisher in Chicago is not a career and it's not what she wanted, but she's lucky. The times are turbulent. The last gasps of the Vietnam war and anti-war demonstrations fill the news, along with student protests, bra-burning, economic stagnation, and rising unemployment. Polly is grateful to have her own apartment, debts mostly paid, good friends, a cool boyfriend, but when she loses her job and those she loves pull away, she learns what the art of compromise has taught her. The question becomes not what she will do next, but who will she be?