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Hisako Matsui follows up on her 1997 opus Yukie -- about an elderly Japanese woman living in America stricken with Alzheimer's -- with this domestic drama also about the elderly suffering from the same disease. Tomoe (Mikiko Harada) is an ordinary housewife living outside of Nagoya, married to a frequently absent workaholic named Yuzo (Masahi Tomizu). The film opens with Yuzo's cankerous mother Masako (Kazuko Yoshiyuki) moving in. Soon Masako begins to exhibit bizarre, erratic behavior -- she dumps garage on their neighbor's property, and accuses Tomoe of theft. Finally, Tomoe drags the old woman kicking and screaming to the doctor's who diagnoses her with Alzheimer's. Her husband is little help, demanding that Tomoe quit her part-time job in a florist shop to care for his mother full time. After Masako disappears from her during a rainstorm, Tomoe convinces Yuzo that his mother must be placed in a home. On her last night in the house, the guilt-wracked Tomoe sleeps in the same room as Masako, listening to her reminisce about her past.