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Harry Block is a well-regarded novelist whose tendency to thinly-veil his own experiences in his work, as well as his un-apologetic attitude and his proclivity for pills and whores, has left him with three ex-wives that hate him. As he is about to be honored for his writing by the college that expelled him, he faces writer's block and the impending marriage of his latest flame to a writer friend. As scenes from his stories and novels pass and interact with him, Harry faces the people whose lives he has affected - wives, lovers, his son, his sister.
Upon returning in glory to the college from which he was expelled, sexually voracious and dyspeptic writer Harry Block can find no companions for his trip--except, that is, for a hooker he's hired. The trouble with Harry, as it were, is that he's alienated everyone in his life, from a string of wives and psychotherapists to all his living relatives, by rehashing their dirty little secrets in his fatuous, mean-spirited writing. A new height of self-loathing for introspective auteur Allen, who meditates upon a self-reflection theme based on Bergman's WILD STRAWBERRIES.
Woody Allen wrote, directed, and stars in this very dark comedy about a novelist, Harry Block, who says with admirable honesty, "I'm a guy who can't function well in life, but I can in art." So far, Harry has made his way through six psychiatrists and three marriages (one, conveniently enough, with one of his psychiatrists), and he has precious few friends whom he hasn't alienated or betrayed. Harry uses the chaos of his life as fodder for his writing, angering his friends, lovers, and family, who find thinly veiled (and rarely flattering) portraits of themselves in his work. Drowning his growing misery in pills ...
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and sex, Harry finds himself invited to receive an award at a college in upstate New York which he attended, but never graduated from. However, he has a hard time finding anyone who will attend the weekend-long symposium with him: his girlfriend Fay (Elisabeth Shue) has just left him to marry his friend Larry (Billy Crystal); his best friend Richard (Bob Balaban) is afraid he's about to have a heart attack; his former wife/analyst Joan (Kirstie Alley) refuses to let him take their son, and his one-time sister-in-law Lucy (Judy Davis) is literally ready to kill him. Undaunted, Harry hires a hooker, Cookie (Hazelle Goodman), kidnaps his son, forces Richard to come along, and heads upstate, where disaster awaits. A stellar cast appears in small roles and episodes from Harry's stories, including Robin Williams, Demi Moore, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Eric Bogosian, Amy Irving, Richard Benjamin, Mariel Hemingway, and Julie Kavner.
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Hoofdpersoon Harry Block is een schrijver en vrouwenjager die inmiddels meerdere huwelijken en psychiaters versleten heeft. Hij gebruikt zichzelf en de mensen uit zijn directe omgeving als basis voor de personages in zijn vaak cynische en sarcastische verhalen.