When a screenwriter named KAORU dies suddenly, she leaves behind a tangle of relations who are all pulled together for the final act in her life: performing her funeral. The chief mourner is her ex-husband, Jun. A failed actor, he drifts around Tokyo as a driver for callgirls. He has to clean himself up to lead the ceremony down in the small village in Okayama that KAORU came from. There, he meets a host of eccentric characters, TV people, and KAORU ’s daughter, all of whom have complicated feelings for the recently departed. As can be guessed, the funeral becomes chaotic as people quarrel and fight but the fact that KAORU was loved is not in doubt as nostalgia, bitterness, and affection for the woman come out from each mourner in comic confrontations. 

Black comedy and poignant sights of grief emerge as concise scenes rich with distinctive characters and well-orchestrated flashbacks play out while the funeral rumbles on. It is almost as if KAORU had scripted the event herself.