Robin Turner, Craig Russell, is an inept hairdresser who spends his days doing hair and makeup for local drag shows, yet he yearns to step into the spotlight himself. His best friend Liza Connors, Hollis McLaren, is living with schizophrenia after leaving an institution to become Robin’s roommate. The two share a fragile, on-the-edge bond as they navigate a world that often blurs fantasy and reality.
Liza experiences a delusional episode in which she believes the Bonecrusher from The Other Place is pressing down on her. Robin helps her push the threat away, and she reveals more about The Other Place and a friend named Zara who protects her there. The Bonecrusher warns Liza that she is “the one born dead” and urges her to return to The Other Place forever. A social worker visits to review Liza’s medications, emphasizing that pregnancy during her condition would be dangerous. Robin comes home to find Liza buoyant that she could function with the social worker’s guidance, but he is unsettled when a client’s hair request leads to a clash of taste—styled like Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra—which strains his mood.
Robin’s circle expands with Perry, a friend he adores, and Martin, Liza’s friend from the institution, who suffers his own paranoid delusions, insisting his eyes are turning Chinese and muttering about Mao Zedong. The two friends discuss their Halloween costumes, with Perry deciding to go as Karen Black’s flight attendant from Airport ’75 and Liza proposing that Robin dress as Tallulah Bankhead, promising to sew his outfit. The Halloween party becomes a turning point: Robin is a smash, winning the costume contest and earning an offer to perform regularly. His boss at the hair salon—an uneasy, closeted man who harbors biases about gender and sexuality—reluctantly agrees to give him time off to shop for fabrics for new dresses.
At the club, Robin debuts as Bette Davis, delivering live performances that lampoon Joan Crawford’s routines in Mildred Pierce, Autumn Leaves, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? The act is bold and well received. Liza continues therapy, keeping a private journal she reads to her psychiatrist, who recommends a return to the institution. She resists, though the doctor reiterates the pregnancy warning. Anne, Liza’s lesbian editor friend, reads the journal and suggests there could be market potential for her stories.
As Robin grows more ambitious, he keeps expanding his stage persona, even appearing as Barbra Streisand in another club appearance. The financial strain of bills mounting leads to a setback when a client’s complaint causes him to lose his day job at the salon. Liza becomes pregnant, but tragedy strikes when the baby is stillborn. Grief-stricken, she sinks deeper into withdrawal, and Robin arranges for their friend Bob, a former talent agent turned cab driver, to drive him to Canada to fetch Liza and bring her back to New York.
In New York, Robin continues to push forward with a grittier, more dazzling act at the Jackrabbit Club. He performs “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” rapidly shifting through a string of iconic personas—Carol Channing, Marlene Dietrich, Ethel Merman, Ella Fitzgerald, Pearl Bailey, and Bette Midler—before ending with a encore as Carol again. The performance is a triumph, securing him a regular slot at the club. Meanwhile, Liza is hospitalized to give birth, but the hopeful moment is crushed by the stillbirth, leaving her in an intense depression. Robin calls for Bob to drive him back to Canada to retrieve Liza.
Back in New York at Robin’s apartment, Liza remains withdrawn, and Robin directs Bob to prepare her for that night’s show at the Jackrabbit. Robin takes the stage again, this time as Peggy Lee, singing “It Ain’t Easy” in a world that feels chaotic and mercurial. Liza gradually begins to reengage with her surroundings. After a quiet, intimate moment in Robin’s dressing room, she confesses her profound despair, describing herself as “dead inside.” Robin reassures her that she is alive, albeit crazy, and that they both share a kind of madness they must embrace. Reluctantly at first, Liza finds a spark of life again, and together they return to the crowded dance floor, stepping into the spotlight as a united, defiant pair.
In this muddy, glittering collision of performance, fragility, and resilience, the film traces two people who find meaning not in escaping their reality but in leaning into the chaos together. The story holds a compassionate mirror to the fragility and strength found in friendship, creativity, and love, even when the world seems to tilt toward the edge.
