Plenty boasts a cast of actors ranging from John Gielgud as an ethical and caustic senior diplomat to Meryl Streep as Susan Traherne, a woman looking for solace and a decent life in the aftermath of World War II. After World War II has ended, along with her work in the French Resistance movement and an idealized love affair with a soldier, Susan finds jobs in the business and diplomatic worlds.
Her life slowly disintegrates as she tries and fails to have a child then marries diplomat Raymond Brock (Charles Dance) and suffers further emotional decline as her rather conventional marriage eventually becomes cool and finally, alienating.
Against Susan's difficulties are tumultuous events in the background -- the Suez Canal crisis and Middle East developments among them. David Hare adapted the screenplay from his successful stage play which first opened in 1978.