Lucia Lane is a successful British novelist living in the US. She arrives in Mumbai to witness the production of a film based on one of her books. Lonely and vulnerable, she feels an instant attraction to the handsome leading man in the film. The actor himself is an excellent example of many Indian protagonists in the Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala films: both charismatic and troubling. Despite being married, he responds to Lane's advances. The result is a Chekhovian tragicomedy about flawed and ruined figures who are nevertheless instantly recognizable.