During
the week he turns 33, NYC magazine publisher David Aames, a playboy
who has strange dreams, spends a night of passion with Julie, "a
friend he sometimes sleeps with," and a night with Sofia, a witty,
knowing dancer with a Spanish accent - a night with intimations of
love. David is charming, rich (his mother's Monet, "Vanilla Sky"
is in his bedroom), and feckless: he inherited the magazines and his
minority partners want him out. Jump ahead: he's in jail, wearing
a prosthetic mask, talking to a sympathetic psychologist to get at
the truth behind a death. Who has died? How? And who's Ellie? Popping
up often on TV is Benny, a dog who survived for months frozen in ice.
David
Aames takes all he has for granted; his wealth, his inherited publishing
company, his good looks - his relationships. Especially his relationships.
It catches up to him when a friend/sometimes sex-partner can't see
their relationship the way he sees it. From that point, the movie
takes a Lynchian twist that ultimately and literally pulls us into
Aames' tortured psyche.