Irene lives in the strip-mall world of upstate New York. Her marriage is crumbling, she has two sons and a secret cocaine habit that she knows she must end. After entering and completing a rehab program, she returns home only to find her marriage is in fact in worse condition than before she left. In this environment she enters into an extra-marital affair with a nurse and fellow addict she met at the clinic. Little does she realize how much she has in common with him, and how much more she has taken on. Down to the Bone had its inspiration in a housekeeper that director Debra Granik met at a New York inn. The questions raised by Down to the Bone werethe key to the film: questions about why people change, why some keep fighting and others give up, why we sometimes connect to toxic people, and why some of us are susceptible to addiction. And much like real life, the film has no clean final redemptions for characters that may regret some - or many - of their actions.