Otto Anderson is a 63-year-old
widower, living in a
patio home in suburban
Pittsburgh. Six months after losing his wife Sonya, a schoolteacher, Otto has become a curmudgeonly, fastidious recluse. Pushed into retirement from his job at a steel plant, he cancels his utilities and plans to kill himself to join her. Preparing to
hang himself, Otto is interrupted by the arrival of new neighbors: pregnant Marisol, husband Tommy, and daughters Abby and Luna, who try to befriend him. When he resumes his attempted suicide, the noose pulls the hook from the ceiling. He visits Sonya's grave, reminiscing: as a young man, he failed his army medical with
hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Waiting to return home he saw Sonya drop a book on the platform, following her onto a train going in the opposite direction to his, he returns the book and Sonya takes an immediate liking to him. She gives him the money to buy a ticket where he gets a
1964 silver quarter in change, which she prompts him to keep. Otto helps his neighbor Anita with her radiators, despite holding a grudge against her husband Reuben, a non-responsive stroke survivor. He attempts suicide again by means of
carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage, thinking back to his and Sonya's courtship as he begins to lose consciousness, but he is interrupted by Marisol seeking help after Tommy breaks his leg falling from a ladder. Otto reluctantly drives Marisol and the children to the hospital, where he assaults a clown for taking his special quarter during a magic trick. While waiting on a railway platform, planning another suicide attempt, Otto remembers his graduation from engineering school, when he asked Sonya to marry him. As the train approaches, an older man faints onto the tracks and Otto saves him, and is pulled to safety by another passenger at the last second. This rescue is filmed by onlookers who are intent on their phone cameras, rather than assisting with the rescue. When a stray cat takes a liking to him, Otto reluctantly adopts it. He confronts a teenager named Malcolm for delivering unwanted advertising circulars, and the boy recognizes Otto as his former teacher's husband, describing how Sonya supported him as a
trans student. Annoyed by Marisol's failure to learn to drive, Otto gives her lessons. They visit Sonya's favorite bakery, where Otto explains that Anita and Sonya were best friends, but he and Reuben grew apart over rivalries and trivialities such as brand loyalties to different car manufacturers, Otto being for Chevrolet and Reuben Ford. The final straw came when Reuben bought a Toyota, culminating in Reuben's "coup", replacing Otto as chair of the neighborhood association. Otto babysits Abby and Luna while Marisol and Tommy spend a night out together, and befriends Malcolm, helping to fix his bicycle. Otto dodges
social media journalist Sharie Kenzie after a video of the incident at the train station
goes viral. Unable to come to terms with Sonya's death, Otto lashes out at Marisol and also at an agent for Dye & Merika, a real estate company trying to buy up the neighborhood. He prepares to commit suicide by shotgun, remembering the bus crash on a romantic trip to
Niagara Falls that caused a pregnant Sonya to lose their baby and become a
paraplegic. This fourth suicide attempt is interrupted by Malcolm, who has been kicked out by his father; Otto lets him stay the night. Otto learns that Dye & Merika are conspiring with the estranged son of Reuben and Anita, using Anita's secret
Parkinson's diagnosis to buy their house and put Reuben in their nursing home. He resolves to fight them and asks for Marisol's help, finally opening up about Sonya's lost child and subsequent disability, his frustration at the
inaccessibility of the Dye & Merika housing development, and how he was voted out as association chair after a heated confrontation. When Dye & Merika staff arrive to take Reuben, the neighbors band together to stop them, while Kenzie live-streams the incident, exposing their illegal access to Anita and Otto's medical records. Otto collapses and is taken to hospital, identifying Marisol as his next of kin. She is amused to learn that "his heart is too big", then goes into labor and gives birth to a son, Marco. Otto gives Marisol and Tommy the cradle he built when Sonya was pregnant, gives his car to Malcolm, and grows closer to his neighbors. Three years later, following a snowfall, Tommy notices Otto has not shoveled his walkway as he normally would. He and Marisol enter his house and find that Otto has died of heart failure. They also find a letter to Marisol bequeathing her his home, savings, new truck, and cat. Following his wishes for a funeral, the neighbors gather to remember Otto. ==Cast==