Your heart will go out to the characters just as your hand reaches for a tissue. "One True Thing," an adult drama about how cancer changes the lives of a family, is a true weeper. Told in flashback segments, the story centers on Ellen (Renee Zellweger, "Jerry Maguire"), a young political reporter for a New York magazine. Ellen finds her mother, Kate (Meryl Streep), a sort of embarrassment. Kate is always decorating Christmas trees, cooking terrific meals and in general being a supermom. Ellen arrives home for her dad's birthday party, which Kate has planned as a surprise costume event. Ellen's dad George (William Hurt) is a college professor and a writer himself. And it's obvious that Ellen and her father share a closeness that she does not share with her mother. Ellen doesn't want to be like her mother, so bustling with her cheerfulness and her women's group projects. When Kate goes to the doctor, she ends up having cancer surgery in a hospital. George demands that Ellen take a leave of absence from her job and come home to help care for her mother. Despite Ellen's protests, she finally comes home, and finds that her mother really is critically ill. She also discovers that her father can be self-absorbed and that Kate has more depth and strength than Ellen ever imagined. No one can bring tears to a viewer's eyes like Meryl Streep, and her performance is sure to do just that this time -- in the audience in which I was a part, chokes and sobs were audible practically all the way through the show. This is an interesting, true-to-life drama that examines a family trying to survive changes any of use could face someday. Rated PG-13, the show isn't actually about Christmas, but there's a wonderful Christmas scene that will bring the spirit of the season clsoer to your heart.