Michael Douglas stars as professor Grady Tripp, a novelist who teaches creative writing at a university but has been unable to finish his second novel. After the film failed at the box office, there was a second attempt to find an audience with a new marketing campaign and a November 8, , re-release, which was also a financial disappointment.
Professor Grady Tripp is a novelist who teaches creative writing at an unnamed Pennsylvania university. He is having an affair with the university chancellor, Sara Gaskell, whose husband, Walter, is the chairman of the English department in which Grady is a professor.
Grady's third wife, Emily, has just left him, and he has failed to repeat the grand success of his first novel, published years earlier. He continues to labor on a second novel, but the more he tries to finish it the less able he finds himself to invent a satisfactory ending. The book runs to over pages and is still far from finished. He spends his free time smoking cannabis. Grady's students include James Leer and Hannah Green. Hannah and James are friends and both very good writers.
Hannah, who rents a room in Grady's large house, is attracted to Grady, but he does not reciprocate. James is enigmatic, quiet, dark and enjoys writing fiction more than he first lets on. During a party at the Gaskells' house, Sara reveals to Grady that she is pregnant with his child. Grady finds James standing outside holding what he claims to be a replica gun, won by his mother at a fairground during her schooldays.
However, the gun turns out to be very real, as James shoots the Gaskells' dog when he finds it attacking Grady. James also steals a very valuable piece of Marilyn Monroe memorabilia from the house.
