Plot
Isaac Barr (Richard Gere) is a top-notch San Francisco Freudian psychiatrist, who has Diana Baylor (Uma Thurman) on the patient's couch. He is treating her for frightening and horrific childhood memories, which include images of her drunken father and his death in a fire for which she wasn't blamed.
One night, Heather Evans (Kim Basinger) enters Barr's office and says she is Baylor's sister. She asks Barr for information about her sister's case. It is implied, as part of the treatment, that Isaac speak to Heather to find out more about her sister's past experiences and determine if she might provide information Diana has forgotten.
Not long after, Heather seduces Isaac, and a steamy affair follows. The problem: Heather is married to Jimmy Evans (Eric Roberts), a violent and wealthy Greek gangster. She also has a way of embarrassing Jimmy in public by taking a sip of wine and then flipping into an attack of "pathological intoxication," which can end with the restaurant in shambles.
It turns out Heather is trying to involve unsuspecting Isaac in a diabolical plan to murder Jimmy and collect a $4 million double indemnity life insurance policy on him. She's also using Diana as bait and wants Isaac framed for the murder.
Read more about this topic: Final Analysis
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
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The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)