Having lost his own wife in a senseless car crash, Dr. Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhart) uses his skills to become a best-selling author who helps others cope with the death of a loved one. He has a sleazy agent and manager named Lane (Dan Fogler) who books him in Seattle where his dead wife once lived and forces Burke to deal with all the reminders of her absence. It sends him into a funk, unable to cope, but he does meet Eloise Chandler (Jennifer Aniston), a forty-something florist with whom he has a fling. After meeting his dead wife’s father (Martin Sheen), Burke feels he may be able to let go of the past, symbolized by his wife’s pet parrot, and truly love with a free-spirited and ageless woman.