Streep plays Violet Weston, the family's
newly widowed matriarch, and Roberts plays Barbara Weston, Violet's oldest daughter, who lives in fear of becoming her uncensored and pill - addicted
mother.
At its center is the «bastard» of the title, Asya, a nineteen - year - old woman who loves Johnny Cash and the French Existentialists, and the four sisters of the Kazanci family who all live together in an extended household in Istanbul: Zehila, the zestful, headstrong youngest sister who runs a tattoo parlor and is Asya's
mother; Banu, who has
newly discovered herself as a clairvoyant; Cevriye, a
widowed high school teacher; and Feride, a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster.