On the morning after the 2003 Academy Awards, Max - an Oscar-winning writer/director whose fame has waned - and his lover, Elena, are in bed, still groggy from last night's red-carpet festivities. They are talking about movies, talking about love, talking about the just-begun war in Iraq. But their house is full of guests demanding attention.

Gathered downstairs are ex-wives, daughters, agents, lovers and a coterie of others. Over the next ten days they share their stories of Hollywood past and present, their fears provoked by the Iraq war; they watch films in Max's luxury screening room; they gossip by the swimming pool and tussle in the many bedrooms, as the tension mounts and sparks fly...