A young Mark, wearing a full ‘head gear’ style retainer, sits in church while the adult Mark (in Voice over) recounts how he had an epiphany, after seeing “The Godfather”, that he wanted to work in showbiz. He made a deal with God that fi he were to get out of his small New Hampshire town and make it to Hollywood, that he would be a good Catholic. Thirty-one years later, he realizes he hasn’t lived up to his end of the bargain.
The adult Mark is followed down a hall by the ‘movie crew’ into the office of a marketing exec. The exec. claims to be a “huge fan” and tells M. how the movie that is his life is testing in various markets including New York City and Santa Fe. The exec. tells him that his Hollywood “insider” status should be played down, as should Lorna’s depression and the affair with Danni. All of the elements of M.’s life that are true and unscripted.
M. and L. stand in the bathroom preparing for bed. L. downs her prescription meds that control her bi-polar disorder and other meds to alleviate the side effects of her main prescriptions. M. pops one pill – Propecia (for hair loss). They talk about Zach’s upcoming party and feeling obligated to attend the “benefit” even though it’s just another thinly veiled ‘schmooze-fest’. M. suggests they take an “entourage” to stand out (since writers normally don’t get as much attention) and he cynically relates that having friends that are part of the “beautiful people” is a plus in those situations. M. jokes that everyone on the Westside [of LA] is beautiful except one woman he saw once who had to have been a tourist. L. hears a noise and as M. goes to investigate, a plant comes crashing through the sliding glass door. M. races out of the house to find no one. But when he returns, he sees muddy footprints leading inside. He races up the stairs to the sounds of L’s arguing with someone. As he turns the corner, he sees a drunken Stephen. Stephen begs L. to stop avoiding him and to run away with him. L., seeing M., says she can handle Stephen, but M. tells him to leave. S. taunts M. with the broken plant and says it was a gift from L. In a ‘Yoda’ voice, Stephen says, “Much he does not know, much to learn here.” M. looks on in consternation. S. then reminds L. that she promised to leave with him and run away to Malta one day while they were walking together on the beach. An agitated L. claims she didn’t say that. S. realizes that she won’t leave with him and L. urges him to go home and take the mangled gift plant with him. After hearing S. tumble down the stairs, M. announces he’s driving him home.
A fuming M drives along with S. wondering why he’s even taking him home after what he’s just heard. M. asks S. about his walk on the beach with L. – in his stupor, S. blurts out something about Teddy, the mystery man in L.’s life. M. asks S. to tell him more, but S. throws up instead.
M and D. walk along sharing an umbrella in a park filled with cherry blossoms while he recounts his run0in with S. He says that his life has become like a dvd with the movie on one track and his commentary about it to Danni playing on another. He asks if she does that too, and she tells him that he’s “fishing.” She explains that much of what they share with each other is “safe” because their relationship won’t be permanent and they risk nothing by being forthright. They talk about L’s recent diagnosis and how M. worries about what it must be like to go through life being labeled by only one obvious art of your persona. D. refutes his professed concern for L. as actually being more of a concern for himself. She reminds him that ultimately he should be grateful for his life in whatever form it takes. They see a hummingbird and M. explains his notion of “double-think”. Doublethink is when while he’s thinking of D., he experiences something else that makes him think of her. They reach her car and kiss after which D. asks again if M. has lied to her. She threatens that something terrible will happen if he lies.
“The Three Stages”
M. remembers his separation from L. a few years earlier and realizes that he hasn’t told D. the full truth about their time apart. In a flashback, M. and L. argue and L/ blames M. for her time away from Walt when he was a baby due to work. She also accuses M. of not really wanting to have the second child and that’s why he wasn’t supportive after the miscarriage. M. denies this, but L. says that he disappeared into his own “little wold” instead of facing their loss with her. M. is incensed by her criticism and explodes throwing a pot and breaking some furniture. L. suggests that he should still see Walt and that they should continue as writing partners, but that otherwise she needs “some space.”
From a hotel, M. recounts the “three stages” after being kicked out – feeling sorry for himself, being pissed off (and having a naked boxing match with a shower curtain), and fooling around with someone else. M. consults the yellow pages under ‘escort services’.
A very satisfied call girl exits the hotel bathroom and thanks M. for her three orgasms and claims she cannot return to her profession after their tryst. The flashback then rewinds to show the same call girl exiting the bathroom and offering a sympathetic smile for M.’s bruised ego after he’s failed to ‘perform’. She intuits that he’s married and predicts that he will get back together with L. M. realizes later that L. had been right; that he hadn’t been there for her.
In the therapist’s office, M. wonders if omitting the details of that night constituted a lie to D. whom he had told that he never cheated on L. The therapist asks why M. always has trouble with honesty in his relationships and suggests he look to his past, his childhood. “If you have kittens in the oven, don’t call them muffins.”
“A tree grows in Jerusalem”
M. and L. sit outside while M. sorts through their mail. L. carefully broaches the topic of Stephen’s nocturnal visit, but claims she doesn’t why S. said what he said. M. doubts this but doesn’t challenge her. M. opens a letter to find that a previously unknown Uncle Mordecai Agoston has planted a tree in Jerusalem in his name. M. learns the story of his great grandfather Yusef Agoston, a Hungarian war hero and banker. M. imagines himself as Yusef, who, in protest of the restrictions placed on Jews by the Nazis, challenges the local authority’s mandate to register. The local registrar apologizes to Yusef and treats him with respect. Later, while walking back through the rain-slicked cherry-blossom lined streets, Yusef stops at a water fountain that is out of order. He continues on only to be attacked and beaten by 3 men. In the present time, M. relates the letters’ ending to L. who is confused because she believed his mother’s family to be Catholic. M. explains that his grandfather escaped the Holocaust with black-market papers that said he was catholic ad found life easier with that lie. L. realizes that M. is by birth Jewish and jokes about his connection to Hollywood. She says she doesn’t care what religion he is as long as he doesn’t stop worshipping her.
Later, unable to sleep, M. checks his cell messages and listens to D.’s apology over her insistence on honesty.
In the morning, M. apologizes again to the unforgiving Shaq #8 in hopes that he’ll stop giving him the cold (err) shoulder. The fish accuses him of being a cheap “Je-“ when he doesn’t give him enough fish food. The boom man then tells an anti-Semitic joke to the camera operator which offends M.
“Jesus of Palisades”
M. walks up to Stephen’s house and hears him playing the ukulele and singing:
“I don’t want to drink alone
I want someone to drink with
I want a glass to clink with
I want a soul to sink with
I don’t want to drink alone
I want someone to join me
Where’s my champagne chaperone?
I don’t want to drink alone.”
M. enters and hands him the estimate for the broken glass door, when he sees a gun on the desk behind S.
“I don’t want to toast myself
I want someone to booze with
Drain the bottles from the shelf
I don’t want to toast myself.
Where’s my old time drinking buddy?
I know I’m always cryin’
But folks, I’m buyin’”
M. wonders aloud why S. has a gun out in a house where his kid could pick it up. S. tells M. that his wife has left him and took their son. S. tells how his relationship with his wife stagnated because of her inability to mature. He asks M. not to tell L. that he is alone. M. leaves the house and hears a gunshot. He races back in to see dust and plaster falling from a hole in the ceiling. S. looks surprised to find the gun was loaded.
M. returns home to find Annie on his couch waiting for her yoga date with L. They talk about Stephen’s escapade the previous night and A. convinces M. to buy L. a sexy outfit so that she’ll be charmed into telling the truth by the generous gesture. She tells M. to stop by her boutique the next day.
Walter ‘scoots’ around the pool mimicking Golum from Lord of the Rings while M. ponders over a response to his Uncle Mordecai. He wonders what Jesus would think of his newly revealed heritage. (A rather cute) Jesus appears, walking on the water of the pool, to answer his questions. M. is confused over where his Jewish background will fit into his life-long Catholic beliefs. Jesus reminds him that his own heritage was Jewish, but that the ‘master plan’ doesn’t always take on a clear form. M. questions what he truly is and Jesus replies, “You are loved” after which Jesus ascends while waving at M.
“Inside-out”
M. contemplates ignoring the details of L.’s cell phone bill or checking up on her. He finds ten calls to Teddy.
The next day, M. visits Annie at the boutique where she shows him her new men’s line “inside-out” where the shirt seams are on the outside. A.’s sales had been low until it was worn by “Ben Affleck” in a “J. lo” music video. M. jokes about how a good script can go nowhere until a hot actor like “B. Fleck” wants to do it. They continue to commiserate on the difficulties of being an artist and remaining commercially viable. She holds up a top for L. which M. vetoes as too “90210”. A. disagrees and takes her top off to model the blouse. Upon seeing her bra, M. turns his back and she teases him about his modesty while handing him her top to hold. He agrees to buy the blouse for L. and sits and watches as A. changes out of it, once again revealing her bra. M. sits mesmerized for a moment until A. reminds him that he is holding onto her shirt. She gives him a shirt to try on and while he undresses, he casually asks her about Teddy’s identity. A. knows nothing, but picks up on his suspicions. She surprises M. by hinting that she knows about his affair.
L. models the new blouse while M. sits watching. L. is pleased by his generosity and apologizes for Stephen’s behavior. M. almost asks for the truth about Teddy but instead says everything is okay between them. D. calls to say that Brock can’t come to Zach’s party tonight and L. suggests that D. ride with them.
L., D., and M. drive along with M. trying to make sense out of his present situation. He compartmentalizes his two relationships and is confident that they won’t intrude on each other. At Zach’s party, they run into Purity (Ryan’s assistant) who tells them that Cameron Diaz is considering the lead role in their script for $22 million. M. and L. kiss to celebrate while D. watches in the background. L. goes to the ladies’ room and D. tells M. how upset she is watching L. and M. together before heading off to get herself a drink. M. spots Zach and goes to talk to him, but they are interrupted by a frisky Purity who kisses Zach. M. imagines their relationship in two different ways: Purity'’ version where she, not Cameron Diaz, is the star of the film and Z. proposes to her vs. Zach’s version where he promises nothing to Purity but in return gets her loyalty and a blow job.
Zach takes the stage and announces a one-round scavenger hunt with a $10,000 donation going to AIDS Project LA in the winner’s name. Six items are listed – a business card, a piece of fruit, a man wearing lipstick, a bra, women’s shoes, and carrying a purse. M. is chosen from his group by Annie, Lorna, Liz, and Danni. He starts towards the stage but trips on the shoes and another guy (from the William Morris Agency – CAA’s rival) wins. M. recovers and spies Francis Ford Coppola looking at him from across the room much to his chagrin. A photographer takes M’s picture while he is still down. M. slowly walks back to the women and declares that this is the first and hopefully last time he will unclasp his own bra. L. has disappeared and he catches up to heron her way out. She is obviously out of it and M. is irritated enough to confront her about Teddy, all the while still wearing a bright pink shade of lipstick. L. refuses to fall for it and instead extracts a confession from M. about his snooping through her cell phone records. Frustrated, M. accuses L. of screwing around, but L. flips him off and staggers away laughing.
Later while driving, D. apologizes to M. for her jealousy. M. decides to come clean about the escort and a myriad of other ‘secrets’ like his teenage stamp collection, keeping his virginity until age eighteen, his Propecia pill-popping, and his desire to have a deeper relationship with Danni. D. tells him that she already knew how he felt and suggests they go somewhere to make love.
Looking back, Mark remembers it like a storyboard with images drawn highlighting certain moments of that night. [A series of black and white drawings follows]
A lifeguard station
Waves crashing on the shore
A couple walking on an isolated beach
They look into each other’s eyes
They kiss
Their hands entwine
They kiss again and the man reclines with his shirt open
The woman bares her breasts
She straddles and kisses him
She stands and takes off her jeans while he watches
She undoes his pants
The waves crash
She straddles him again
They both climax
They lay under the full moon in each other’s arms
He tells her poem (a haiku)
She listens…
“In the time it takes
A hummingbird’s wings to flap
I’ve thought of you twice.”
Back I the therapist’s office, M. worries what all these events mean and wishes for a sign to show him he’s on the right path.
M., L. and Walt drive home and pass by a church calling worshippers to service. M. suggests stopping, but L. nixes the idea saying that they’ll never find a parking space. A car pulls out of a space in front of them.
Inside, M. remebers his Jewish great-grandfather Yusef, his Catholic mother, Presbyterian step-father, and agnostic brother wile imagining himself again as his Hungarian great-grandfather. Yusef stumbles bleeding down a dark abandoned street and collapses. M. discovers that in learning more about his identity, he hasn’t lost his faith. The minister calls the congregation to celebrate “World Marriage Day” by observing the couples in their midst. The couples rise and then take their seats again, starting with the most recently married first. Eventually, the longest married couples remain standing, including M. and L. with over 15 years of marriage. One couple, married for over 50 years, remains as the parishioners applaud. The priest reminds them all of the sacredness of marriage and their vows to each other and asks them to renew their pledge. M. and L. renew their vows and take each other’s hands. M. realizes that he has to keep his family and marriage together to become “worthy of the love that God has blessed [him] with.”
Later, unable to sleep, M. plays D.’s latest cell phone message where she tells him that she loves him. M. is happy at her words, but wonders if God will forgive him.