Middle-aged couple Josh and Cornelia Srebnick are filmmakers living in a shaky marriage in New York City. Josh has spent the last 10 years struggling on the post-production of his documentary film about leftist intellectual Ira Mandelstam while not letting his producer wife help him with the project.
After finishing a lecture at the college where he teaches, Josh is approached by Jamie and Darby Massey, a young couple who invite him and Cornelia out to dinner. Jamie claims to be a fan of Josh's work and the works of his accomplished documentary filmmaker father-in-law, Leslie Breitbart. Josh is immediately awestruck by Jamie and Darby's non-conservative outlook on life as he and Cornelia begin spending more and more time with them, joining in on their bohemian lifestyle.