Aki and Naoko are childhood friends who are drifting apart as adults. Immersed in her family life, Naoko now has a husband and daughter; Aki, on the other hand, remains single and is on leave from work due to a personal crisis. The plot might sound familiar but it has never been told like this. The director Kusano Natsuka stages the interactions through an actors’ table-read and, as the lines are repeated, the scenes gradually develop into on-location conversations. Moreover, she repositions the dramatic peak of the story to the beginning: Aki has murdered Naoko’s daughter.
Structurally inventive, Kusano's daring cinema implements ‘distantiation’ effects to get to the heart of friendship issues at times when life has settled. While the repetitions convey the suffocation of role patterns in both friendship and family, a line left out or added in unsettles and reminds us life can take unexpected turns.
哈雷(曼迪·摩尔 Mandy Moore 饰)是一名17岁的女子高中生,可是她看上去的神态可要比年龄老道得多。哈雷的母亲蕾迪尔(阿丽森·詹尼 Allison Janney 饰)刚刚和丈夫阿伦(彼得·盖勒 Peter Gallagher 饰)离婚,此时正陷入绝望的情绪中无法自拔,她觉得自己差劲极了。姐姐阿什利(玛丽·凯瑟琳·歌瑞森 Mary Catherine Garrison 饰)即将和未婚夫携手步入婚姻的殿堂,但成天吵架的两人都开始怀疑对方是否是自己对的那个人。
思凯乐(亚历山德拉·霍尔登 Alexandra Holden 饰)是哈雷最好的朋友,哈雷看着她一天一天的为了前男友劳神伤心却毫无办法。身边所发生的一切都让哈雷对爱情失去了信心,直到一个名叫梅根(特伦特·福特 Trent Ford 饰)的男孩出现在他的生命里。