After attending a seminar by a New Age communications guru, Ukai, Jun casually reveals that she has been having an affair with a younger man and plans to divorce her husband.

The three friends attend Jun's court case to support her, which affects their perception of their own lives and relationships in intertwining stories.

Free-spirited and independent Jun is married to a biologist, Kohei, who strongly opposes the divorce and calmly believes that he can convince her to give up.

She maintains that she tried hard to be a good wife, but Kohei emotionally rejected her, and his lack of interest in sex prevented her from achieving her dream of having a baby.

Later, she reprimands Yuzuki harshly for making what could have been a serious mistake, and afterward, she accidentally falls down the stairs and breaks her leg.

As she recovers, she attends an art event that Fumi is hosting, and though Ukai is slated to interview the star of the show, Kozue, he spontaneously walks out.

Yoshihiko seems unmoved and leaves for work; when he slips down the stairs, Sakurako hurries to help him and see him off, then continues on with her household chores as if nothing happened.

Surprisingly, Kohei is a sensitive and engaged interviewer, and the session goes well, which alters the friends' opinions of him even as they disapprove of his dogged refusal to let Jun have her divorce.

Fumi loses her nerve and storms out of the dinner, but Takuya does not follow her, and instead stays with Kozue to drive her home.

Fumi leaves to be by Takuya's side when he wakes up, but not before agreeing with Akari to plan another trip with Sakurako and Jun.

[9] Upon its release in the United States, Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote that "Hamaguchi is a genius of scene construction, turning the fierce poetry of painfully revealing and pugnaciously wounding dialogue into powerful drama that’s sustained by a seemingly spontaneous yet analytically precise visual architecture".

[12] Vadim Rizov also held the latter opinion, saying, "The logline is that it’s a drama about five Japanese women charting their friendship, using duration to build character depth, and that’s absolutely true, but there’s so much more".

[12] Dan Sullivan in Film Comment stated, "Buoyed by four captivating performances from its unheralded actresses, Happy Hour is a fascinating, towering confection of contradictions".