A social worker who recently lost her husband investigates the strange Wadsworth family. The Wadsworth's might not seem too unusual consisting of the mother, two grown daughters and the diaper-clad, bottle-sucking baby. The problem is, the baby is twenty-one years old.

An Englishman (Leslie Howard) who has been studying painting in Paris for four years, is advised by his art teacher that his work is mediocre and second-rate, and that he lacks promise. So he returns to London, England to take up studies to become a medical doctor, but his older age and introspection make it difficult for him to keep up in his scholastic work. In England, he becomes infatuated - and then obsessed by a blonde, lower-class, slatternly and vulgar, Cockney-accented, illiterate tearoom waitress named Mildred Rogers (Bette Davis)