After six years together, Dean's (RYAN GOSLING) and Cindy's (MICHELLE WILLIAMS) marriage is at an end. What began as a romantic passion with unconditional devotion has given way to creeping disillusionment: Declarations of love via ukulele and tap dancing have turned into banal arguments about money, failed ambitions and daughter Frankie (FAITH WLADYKA). How it could have come to this, neither of them knows. Both seem to have already lost the battle. As a last-ditch attempt to save their marriage, Dean and Cindy spend a night in a motel, awakening both tender memories of their first time as a couple and the brutal knowledge that they are facing the hardest change of their lives.