[4] On a flight to Sydney, sports announcer and former football star Mike Gambril meets singer Terry McKay, each of them engaged.

The plane manages an emergency landing on a remote atoll, and the passengers wait to be rescued by nearby ships.

Finally, on the way home on the return flight to New York, they agree to reunite at the top of the Empire State Building in three months' time to test their convictions and current relationships.

Mike, to the chagrin of his agent, is having an existential crisis about his TV career and ruminates about returning to his hobby painting.

One of his primary pieces is a portrait of Terry in prayer from their idyllic day on the island, wearing his aunt's hand-made shawl.

Six months after the accident, she sees Mike with his former fiancée at a holiday concert featuring Ray Charles, which Terry is attending with her former boyfriend.

Christmas Eve arrives and Mike makes a surprise visit, claiming to have come across her address while looking up another name in a telephone directory.

He is about to point out that the woman was in a wheelchair when he suddenly pauses, realizing that Terry isn't moving in her couch and making no effort to get up to say goodbye.

He rented a house for her in Los Angeles and had her referred to a special dermatologist, but she did not give a definitive answer until the day of filming.

[6] Filming took place in New York City, Los Angeles and on the islands of Tahiti and Moorea in French Polynesia.