Gabriel (Timothy Hutton) is a professional architect, and his life certainly looks good on paper considering he has a good career and a loving wife, Pamela (Dana Delany), and daughter (India Ennenga). In reality though, he is not happy with his career or the direction of his life. When he decides to quit his good job to write a play about how bad his life really is he starts to see things much more clearly. His pushy agent (Stockard Channing) keeps driving him to complete the work, which highlights his relationships with his family and his best friend Cari (Mira Sorvino). Ultimately Gabriel, and those around him, begin to realize what their lives have really been all about as a result of the play he is writing.