 During the 1950s, Mike Shea (Timothy Hutton) lives with his parents and has a normal relationship with his girlfriend. But one day, she tells him that some other man has proposed her matrimony and the worst: she has said yes. So, Mike runs away from his little town to California, with his dog. The trip is going fine, until a car accident crosses in his way. An entire family has fallen to a river and they re trapped inside their car. In an heroic gesture, Mike dives in the river and he rescues all the family members, but unfortunately he dies drowned. He goes to heaven and he meets with his aunt, who is now a talented painter. After find some known people from his life in Earth, Mike meets with a beautiful woman, Annie (Kelly McGillis), a new soul which has never reincarnated before. Mike learns that he can reincarnate and return to Earth. But before that, he and Annie fall in love and get married. The problem is that Annie is very curious about Earth and some time later, she tells Mike that she wants to reincarnate in a baby. Mike s now very sad missing Annie and he wants to return to Earth and find her. He will make a deal with Emmet (Debra Winger), a kind of angel, in which Mike will have 30 years to find Annie, otherwise each one will have an unhappy life with other people. Annie in the 1960s has become a toy designer, named Ally, married with a filmmaker. Meanwhile, Mike is a quite disorientated kid, which tries everything, like being a painter, then a soldier, just to become later a musician. Many years pass, but it seems that Mike and Annie are having some difficulties to meet each other again.