Since the death of his wife, salaryman Shuhei Hirayama has depended on his unmarried daughter Michiko. After a chance encounter with an old friend, he decides he must find his daughter a husband, and enlists the help of his westernised son Koichi and his wife Akiko. As Hirayama assesses potential suitors, director Yasujiro Ozu focuses on the competing pressures of loss, hope and the relevance of traditional culture within a modernizing society.