Shelby is a middle-aged wife and mother who is obsessed with the neatness and perkiness of Hallmark Christmas movies. While pregnant, she is told at work that the movies are sexist and she goes off on a tirade about how every woman envies the passivity of Hallmark characters. Shelby is laid off. She accidentally leaves the house door open and the dog runs out and is hit by a car. As a result, people around her begin to believe that she is not responsible enough to take care of a child. Shelby pours herself into a freelance writing career that does not take off; she lies to her husband, Rajid, about how successful she is. She also harbors resentment for the women who witnessed her Hallmark meltdown at work. She thinks back to her time with Rajid when they were dating. He presented her with a law school study guide, and believed it was because he wanted her to go to law school. She began to take an interest in the idea before he got down on one knee and proposed. He claimed that he would be the one becoming a tax attorney. In the present, she decides not to give him her neti pot when he has a cold because she wants to have something all to herself. Her mother lives with them to help take care of the baby and is always passive-aggressively judging all of Shelby's perceived failures. Her despair and sense of helplessness leads to her watching more Hallmark movies; however, her life is disturbed when she receives an anonymous text claiming to want to help her. Shelby texts with the random number, who she believes to be a man. The person on the other line claims to know and understand her. At the pharmacy, she flirts with a pharmacist in case he is the man on the other line. He clearly is not. Shelby's phone number does not appear in the pharmacy system, which she believes to be strange, and her mother watches this interaction. Shelby's mother later judges her incessantly for going to a convenience store. The man texts her and offers to run away with her; Shelby entertains the thought. Back at home, Shelby's mother is concerned by the fact that Shelby's phone number did not show up in the pharmacy system. She has a conspiracy theory that her daughter might get abducted and have her identity stolen. Shelby learns that Rajid is the one who asked her mother to come stay with them and she feels betrayed because of this. Shelby steps outside to get the mail and is drugged and kidnapped. She wakes up on a therapy couch and is told that she is being welcomed into a mountain community as the first member from Virginia. A woman with a gun on her hip informs Shelby that she is there to be repaired because she is incapable of taking care of her child—or even a dog, for that matter. Over time, Shelby begins to appreciate the community as they try to teach her to be maternal. She works in a pastry shop and is surrounded by an electric fence. All of the women in the community are "imperfect" in some way: they don't fit the stereotype of the loving Hallmark woman. She watches nothing but Hallmark movies and feels closer to her family from a distance. She destroys her neti pot as a symbol of rebuilding.