Monty Kessler (Brendan Fraser) and his friends, Courtney (Moira Kelly), Everett (Patrick Dempsey) and Jeffrey (Josh Hamilton) are students at Harvard preparing to finish their senior year. When Monty's hard drive crashes, he loses all but his one physical copy of his senior thesis. Walking home one night, he accidentally loses down a storm grate into the basement of a building on campus. Descending into the dark bottom of the library building, Monty and Courtney meet Simon Wilder (Joe Pesci), a homeless man who has been living there for years and who has the thesis. Simon refuses to return the thesis to Monty, instead striking a deal where Monty has to give Simon one day's worth of food and shelter in return for one page of his thesis. Slowly, day by day, one page at a time, Monty gets his thesis and in return learns with his friends valuable life lessons from the eccentric Simon that they will carry on in their lives forever.