A suicidal road trip taken by a drunken ex-civil servant (Asano Tadanobu) and a depressed bar hostess (Koizumi Kyoko) proves to be threputic and life changing but it takes a while to get there. There is drug taking (sleeping pills, mind you), painful reminiscing and drinking. Lots of drinking. The flashbacks peel back the layers of our characters and what led them to this path, doing it in a backwards manner similar to the structure of insomnia, which only added to the tragic events. Eventually we get a happy ending to the story. A mother changes her life and gets her kid back while a drunk feels satisfied for the first time in a long time without needing the influence of alcohol. I like to think that they eventually would meet up again and become happy together but being happy separately is just as fine an ending as any.