Friends come and go, don't they? Years pass, lives change and people we regularly hung out with or were actually close to become no more than memories or, today, updates on Facebook. But as Hiroshi Ishikawa's "Petaru Dansu (Petal Dance)" shows simply, but rightly and poetically, we may still care more than we think.
Hearing that a former college classmate has jumped into the frigid winter sea in an apparent suicide attempt, Jinko (Aoi Miyazaki) and Motoko (Sakura Ando) decide to visit her, for the first time in six years.
They borrow an old car from Motoko's understanding former husband (Masanobu Ando) and enlist Haraki (Shiori Kutsuna), a younger woman Jinko befriended in unusual circumstances, as a driver. They journey to the snow-covered north and find their friend, Miki (Kazue Fukiishi), recuperating in a hospital, but physically unharmed. The four women then spend the day together. And that, in outline, is the story.