Setsuko is a single, emotionally unfulfilled woman, seemingly stuck with a drab, meaningless life in Tokyo. At least until she's convinced by her niece, Mika to enroll in an unorthodox English class that requires her to wear a blonde wig and take on an American alter ego named "Lucy." This new identity awakens something dormant in Setsuko, and she quickly develops romantic feelings for her American instructor, John (Josh Hartnett). When John suddenly disappears from class and Setsuko learns that he and her niece were secretly dating, Setsuko enlists the help of her sister, Ayako and the pair fly halfway across the world to the outskirts of Southern California in search of the runaway couple. In a brave new world of tattoo parlors and seedy motels, family ties and past lives are tested as Setsuko struggles to preserve the dream and promise of "Lucy."

"An idiosyncratic character study suggesting that the road to self-knowledge is beset with obstacles and uncertainties." - San Francisco Chronicle

"Hirayanagi has a way of gradually getting inside her characters that slowly renders them comprehensively known, intimately exposed and surprisingly surprising." - Minneapolis Star Tribune