These magical movies inspire Felix to reflect on the women who profoundly impacted his life: his daughter Aliza, who struggles to align her postmodern feminist beliefs with her career ambitions; his sister, Frances, with whom he shared a complicated bond; and Verna, a fiery would-be contender for the 1951 Miss Rheingold competition, a beauty contest and marketing phenomenon.

Against the backdrop of politics and pop culture, family secrets, and Hollywood iconography, Felix gains an enlightened understanding of the pressures and trials that all women, of every era, must face.