Harold Chasen is a teenager who lives alone with his mother
in a comfortable house in the USA. They are well off, but while his mother goes out a lot, Harold's life is strangely empty. Apart, that is, from his unusual hobbies of visiting junkyards, watching the demolition of houses... and going to funerals. Which is how he meets Maude - at a funeral.
Maude, nearly 80, has the energy and appetite for life of somebody much younger. What is her secret? And can her optimism give Harold's life more meaning and direction?