Teenager Harold Chasen lives alone with his mother in a comfortable house near the Atlantic coast of the USA. They have plenty of money and his mother leads a very active social life, but Harold's life is strangely empty - apart from his unusual hobbies of visiting junkyards, watching the demolition teams knock down houses, and going to funerals. Until he meets Maude - at a funeral. Maude is nearly 80, but she has the zest for life of a 20-year-old and some very radical ideas about life! What is her secret? Can Maude's positive optimism give Harold's life more meaning, a new direction, perhaps?