The story starts in a New York French restaurant with a question about life being essentially a comedy or tragedy? A story is proposed and dinner guests go on to complete it as either a comedy or tragedy. The two stories of the same character with the same starting point is woven back and forth throughout the movie. The story starts with: A New York couple, rich girl and actor. They throw a dinner party to impress the actor’s hopeful producer when their long-lost friend Melinda (Rhada Mitchell) appears at their front door in sorry shape. The story then divides into tragic and comedy with Melinda in the tragic version dumping her husband for a photographer. Her husband takes the children and she goes into suicidal depression and mental hospital. In the comic version, Melinda has no children, and lives near the dinner hosts Susan (Amanda Peet) and actor Hobie (Will Ferrell). The movie compares the two Melinda’s and her fate.