Against the backdrop of Manhattan's changing literary and publishing world, aging novelist Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella) is asked by Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose), a graduate student and budding literary critic, to agree to interviews. He's reluctant to spend the time: his health is failing and he wants to finish one more book. Also he's worried about his daughter, Ariel (Lili Taylor), who's approaching 40, underemployed, single and wanting a child. But he agrees, hoping Heather can help resurrect interest in his work. As Heather probes Frank's writing and his past, Ariel reconnects to a former lover. Emotions can be raw and messy, and as relationships change, who gets the better part of the bargain?

Shining Star Restaurant, 377 Amsterdam Avenue and West 78th Street, Manhattan.   The restaurant has since closed down.

Josie's, 300 Amsterdam Avenue and West 74th Street, Manhattan.

Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street and 5th Avenue, Manhattan.   Build in 1963 in the shell of a turn of the century fire station, Cinema Village is the oldest continuously operated cinema in Greenwich Village and one of the oldest continuously operated art cinemas in the city.