Norman T. Kingsley (Mailer) is an experimental filmmaker/presidential candidate planning a soft-core remake of Buñuel’s Belle de Jour at a palatial Hamptons villa. Under the protection of an elite security force led by his brother (Torn), Kingsley barrels through the production and much of his cast (including three of Mailer’s ex-wives). This masterwork of American independent cinema culminates in an explosive confrontation between Torn and Mailer in which the line between fiction and nonfiction is bludgeoned with a hammer.