Unhinged by his wife's unexpected death, Anthony, a middle-aged Seattle journalist, becomes obsessed with her past. He drives through the Nevada desert to locate her ex-husband looking for some unnamable solace. But what awaits him is a bizarre and violent encounter with the past that entangles Anthony with his half-estranged stepchildren, the police, and his own disquieted mind, and that only makes Lucy's ghostly presence seem all the more real. Thanksgiving is a splendid shadow play on the enduring human mystery of love.