A Family Thanksgiving

The film opens with Claudia Parks, a ruthless Harvard-educated lawyer, managing multiple high-stakes trials and obsessing over becoming a partner at her firm, Skinton-Bates-Parks. She is so focused on her career that she rudely dismisses Bill, a friendly man at her local coffee shop, and cancels Thanksgiving dinner with her sister, Jennifer, for the third year in a row. Her firm tasks her with representing the Stross Corporation, which seeks to overturn an injunction to build a steel mill on a public park. Shortly after, a mysterious woman named Gina, claiming to be a 'transpersonal psychologist,' appears in her office and challenges Claudia's assertion that her life is perfect. Gina magically transports Claudia into an alternate reality where she is a suburban 'soccer mom' married to Bill, driving a minivan, and raising two children, Jake and Amy. Initially horrified by the 'poopy smells' and lack of professional status, Claudia tries to run her household like a law firm, implementing 'progress change' meetings and setting corporate-style goals for her children's potty training and grades. She discovers that in this reality, her sister Jennifer is her neighbor and best friend. As she spends time in this life, she learns that Bill is a talented woodworker who put his dreams on hold for the family. She also discovers evidence that the Stross Corporation's existing mills have caused significant health problems for children in other towns. This realization shifts her priorities; she helps the local community organize to save their park and finds genuine happiness in her family life. Just as she embraces this reality, Gina reappears to tell her the experience was only a 'ghost of Thanksgiving future' and sends her back. Claudia wakes up in her original life just before the court hearing. Armed with her new moral compass, she intentionally sabotages her firm's case by revealing the corporation's withheld documents regarding environmental hazards. She loses her job and the partnership but reconciles with her sister and finally agrees to a date with the real-world Bill, choosing a balanced life over cold ambition.