Izzy Maurer, [Harvey Keitel], a jazz saxophonist, is shot in the chest during a performance at a New York City jazz club by a deranged man. He survives a seven-hour operation but loses his left lung, ending his storied music career. A young aspiring actress named Celia Burns, [Mira Sorvino], walks into the Chez Pierre restaurant in New York City where she works as a waitress. She and her boss talk about the shooting, and later she purchases Izzy's latest CD.
Following his recovery, Izzy retreats from the loud world he once inhabited and begins to navigate life with a profound physical and emotional scar. Gradually he ventures back outside and tests how he can fit into a world that has shifted around him. His former girlfriend Hannah, [Gina Gershon], invites him to a dinner where they reconnect with Catherine Moore, [Vanessa Redgrave], a retired star who has become a respected film director, and her film producer friend, Philip Kleinman, [Mandy Patinkin]. For the first time in a long time, Izzy experiences genuine company and a sense of belonging, a feeling that feels almost intoxicating. Catherine is scouting for a young actress to play the part of "Lula" in her upcoming film adaptation of Pandora's Box, a project that promises a new start for everyone involved.
Walking home that night, Izzy encounters a troubling mystery: a dead body lies nearby, and a bag is found close by. He rushes home in fear, but curiosity pulls him back: inside the bag is a small box containing a stone marked with a red symbol. As he studies the stone, he begins to hear voices speaking in foreign tongues, a strange resonance that unsettles him. That night, the stone emits a blue light and hovers above the nightstand, signaling that something beyond the ordinary has entered his life.
The next morning, Izzy discovers a number on a napkin from the bag and calls it. Celia answers, just as she happens to be listening to Izzy’s CD. The two agree to meet, and when Izzy arrives, he demands to know what she knows about the dead man, Stanley Mar, and the mysterious rock. He manipulates the lights in the room to reveal the rock’s blue glow, and Celia is irresistibly drawn to it. She touches the stone, and the two feel an electric lift in their sense of connectivity to the world around them. “The way I feel now, I could spend the rest of my life with you,” Izzy confesses, and soon they fall into a deep, passionate romance. Celia even helps him land a job at her restaurant, though a tense incident with a customer causes Izzy to erupt and the two are fired.
Celia’s breakthrough comes when she is cast in Catherine’s film, Pandorah’s Box, earning Izzy’s mix of pride and anxiety as he supports her with his newly reawakened ambitions. With Izzy’s aid and his connections, Celia secures the coveted part of Lulu and prepares for a journey to Dublin where the film will be shot. But the couple’s happiness is short-lived: Izzy is kidnapped and held captive after being interrogated by men who want to know why he killed Stanley Mar. In a starkly clinical sequence, he is confronted by a mysterious Dr. Van Horn, [Willem Dafoe], who conveys a cold, unsettling disappointment in Izzy. The doctor seems to know far more about Izzy’s past—his real name, childhood memories, and the games he played with fireflies at Echo Lake—than Izzy is comfortable admitting. When Van Horn presses Izzy about Celia’s whereabouts, Izzy refuses to reveal what he knows, and the doctor coldly warns him that his past may come back to define his future.
Van Horn’s pursuit of Celia intensifies as Celia herself struggles with fear and longing. Unable to reach Izzy, she experiences the stone’s melancholy resonance more acutely, and the blue light that once filled the room now drains away to a heavy sadness. In a decisive moment, she takes the stone to Ha'penny Bridge and discards it into the river below, a symbolic release of the strange burden it had placed on them both. Van Horn and his men trace Celia to Dublin and close in on her, forcing a dangerous chase through the city streets until she jumps into the river to escape.
Back in New York, Izzy must come to terms with his captivity and the reality of Celia’s absence. He finally escapes his prison and learns from the film producer that Celia has disappeared. A videotape of Celia’s scenes lands in his hands, and he watches it in a private jazz club, confronting the possibility that his life, and perhaps his soul, has been reshaped beyond recognition. In a quiet, aching moment, he asks his friends, “Am I a good person or a bad person?” The truth of his choices weighs heavily as he watches the footage and processes what has become of the person he longs to be.
The story converges in a final, devastating echo: after being shot at the jazz club, Izzy is carried away in an ambulance, his heart stopping en route to the hospital. He dies as the ambulance passes by a young aspiring actress named Celia Burns, who witnesses the moment and quietly makes the sign of the cross. The film closes on this stark, unresolved boundary between loss and the search for meaning, a meditation on how fame, memory, love, and guilt intertwine in a life that has been forever altered by a moment of violence.
