Harry Stone always dreamed of making "The Great American Movie." Instead he made The Pickle - a teenage sci-fi flick about a flying cucumber. Harry just wanted to get out of debt; now everyone he's ever known, loved and neglected is standing in line for tickets.

Little known actor, Jack Noah, is working on location in the dictatorship of Parador at the time the dictator dies. The dictator's right hand man, Roberto, makes Jack an offer he cannot refuse.. to play the dictator. Jack's acting skills fool the masses but not close friends and employees of the dictator.

Life imitates art when two Manhattanites — pompous teacher Willie and quiet photographer Phil — become friends after a thought-provoking screening of "Jules et Jim," Truffaut's classic film about a decades-long ménage à trois. Soon, the men meet Jeanette, a sexually liberated southern transplant who promptly falls for both of them. Frustrated passions curdle into jealousy as Jeanette entertains love affairs with each in the ensuing years.

Harry is a retired teacher in his 70s living in the Upper West Side of New York City where his late wife and he raised his children--where he's lived all his life. When the building he lives in is torn down to make way for a parking garage, Harry and his beloved cat Tonto begin a journey across the United States, visiting his children, seeing a world he never seemed to have the time to see before, making new friends, and saying goodbye to old friends.