It is based on Tennessee Williams' long-forgotten 1957 screenplay, and stars Bryce Dallas Howard in the leading role of Fisher Willow.

Heiress Fisher Willow reluctantly returns home to Memphis after studying abroad to participate in the tradition of presentation into society at her elderly aunt's request.

Fisher’s father is hated, having intentionally blown up part of his levee, resulting in deaths and property damage to others.

The great grandson of a former governor, Jimmy's family is poor, his father is an alcoholic who temporarily works for Mr. Willow and his mother is in a mental institution.

At the first society party, Fisher causes a scene when she has the band play jazz music and dances in "flapper" fashion.

At the same time, Fisher is called upstairs by her friend's Aunt Addie, bedridden from multiple strokes.

Jimmy, angry at Fisher's accusation of theft, tells everyone that she paid him to be her escort, then openly flirts with Vinnie.

Fisher then runs back upstairs and fulfills her assisted-suicide promise to Addie, while Vinnie tells Jimmy that she has no choice but to marry the man that asked her.

When I was in acting school one of my teachers showed me a collection of his screenplays, and when I read The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond I couldn't believe it had never been made.

I really related to the character, Fisher Willow – mostly in her struggle to be heard in a society that keeps those who are more sensitive, more perceptive, more artistic, more romantic, witty – those people, he had an affinity for.

She was fairly young, and at the time the estate was extremely tight and not giving the rights to a lot of Williams' work.

The website's critics consensus reads: "Stodgy and dispiritingly old-fashioned, Teardrop Diamond proves to be no big loss.

[7] Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle writes, "Even though Howard never quite gets it, never quite releases into the role and never quite convinces, she never makes a mistake, either.