Patsy Newquist Marcia Rodd is a 27-year-old interior designer trying to navigate a New York City that seems to be collapsing under street crime, constant noise, obscene phone calls, rolling blackouts, and a troubling pattern of unsolved homicides. When she steps in to defend a defenseless man being attacked by street thugs, she is surprised by the reaction she receives—the victim does not offer any gratitude. The man she saves is Alfred Chamberlain Elliott Gould, a photographer of excrement who is emotionally vacant, barely capable of feeling pain or pleasure, and who allows mugger after mugger to beat him until they tire and move on.
Patsy has long believed she can shape men to fit her needs, but Alfred proves to be a far more elusive project. She brings him home to meet her eccentric family—her parents, Mr. Chamberlain John Randolph and Mrs. Chamberlain Doris Roberts, along with her brother Kenny Jon Korkes—and the dynamics of this chaotic clan quickly become part of the story. The news that Patsy intends to marry Alfred shocks everyone, and the wedding itself, officiated by the existential Rev. Henry Dupas Donald Sutherland, erupts into a chaotic mass fight rather than a conventional ceremony.
Determined to understand the roots of Alfred’s emotional void, Patsy sends him to Chicago to visit his parents, Mr. Chamberlain and Mrs. Chamberlain, whom he left behind at age seventeen. Alfred records a long, revealing interview with them, but they deny any memory of his childhood, leaving more questions than answers about where his detachment comes from. In the meantime Patsy’s resolve deepens: Alfred begins to promise that he can feel and even be the kind of man who fights back, declaring that his first real feeling is worship for Patsy.
Tragedy strikes when a sniper’s bullet kills Patsy, seemingly without motive. Bloodied and shaken, Alfred makes his way to Patsy’s parents’ apartment, where the city’s inhabitants barely notice his shattered state. Lt. Miles Practice [Alan Arkin], a police detective who is nearly overwhelmed by a cascade of unsolved murders, visits and then leaves, more exhausted than when he arrived. After this, Alfred wanders into a park, where he starts to photograph a statue and a group of children, and returns with a rifle—one he does not know how to load, though Carol shows him the mechanics. In a disturbing turn, Alfred, Carol, and Kenny take turns firing at people on the street.
As Alfred begins to believe he has killed Lt. Practice, a grim mood lifts within the trio, and they—along with Marjorie [Elizabeth Wilson]—gather for dinner at her table. The scene marks a grotesque, unsettling fusion of violence and domestic routine, a graphic meditation on longing, dependence, and the dangerous edge of transformation.
