 Filmmaker Alex Harty, 29, has always considered himself a "tortured artist"-but it s not until his wife dies in a car accident that he learns the term s true meaning. Still saddled with grief two years after her death, Alex s once-promising career has come to a standstill. After assaulting a movie producer with a Mont Blanc pen in Los Angeles, Alex returns to his hometown of San Francisco with little more than his beloved Mercury Comet, and a tape recording of his wife s last phone message. Once in the Bay Area, Alex re-acquaints himself with a wide array of characters, including a photographer who s stalking her ex-boyfriend, a fetish-hungry former classmate, a San Francisco socialite who fancies herself as a patron of the arts, a wedding band singer turned performance artist, a flashy City Supervisor who aspires to be the next JFK, Jr., and the now grown-up French girl who spent her childhood summers as his neighbor. Several misadventures, including a comical car accident, a series of failed pranks and a minor earthquake, culminate in Alex reaching a clearer understanding of his grief, one that allows him to break through his "torture" and return to his art.