Geoffrey Firmin (Albert Finney) is a heavy-drinking British diplomat living in a Mexican town. As the local Day of the Dead celebration gets underway, Geoffrey drowns himself in the bottle, having cut himself off from his family, friends and job. When Geoffrey goes missing, his wife Yvonne (Jacqueline Bisset) convinces his half-brother Hugh (Anthony Andrews) to conduct a last-ditch search for the drunk, hoping that Hugh might be able to rescue her self-destructing husband.