Plot summary

Keith Michaels wrote the screenplay for "Paradise Misplaced" for which he won a Best Original Screenplay Oscar fifteen years ago, the movie which is beloved by most who have seen it. But he may only have three salable screenplays in him - the other two movies which were abject failures both critically and commercially - as his pitches to movie executives now fall flat and his agent Ellen is unable to find him any screenwriting work. In addition, his personal life is failing, as he has long divorced and has not spoken to his eighteen year old son Alex in over a year, Alex who was his inspiration for "Paradise". The only job Ellen is able to secure for him is the writer in residence at Binghamton University in upstate New York, he who would be required to teach an undergraduate screenwriting course. With his resources dwindling, he has no other option but to accept the job, despite he believing that writing in general is an unteachable skill and believing the old adage that those who cannot do, teach. It is also hate at first sight with Binghamton which he sees as a perpetually cold and rainy provincial backwater compared to Hollywood. He has a mixed bag relationship with his fellow professors in the English Department. While the department head, Hal Lerner, a strict military guy with a soft spot, truly likes Keith, Keith immediately butts heads with feminist Jane Austen expert Mary Weldon, also chair of the ethics committee, who sees in Keith a misogynist pop culture hack who has no credentials to teach at the university level. She may be correct especially with the misogyny in the way Keith secretly chooses the majority of the ten students to take his class, the decision having nothing to do with their thirty page screenplay submissions on which they were to be evaluated. Although Keith has no intention to teach at all as he thinks of ways to get back to Hollywood and be an "it" player in the business, he eventually discovers that he has something to pass along to the students, they in turn who may provide him with another view of life. He especially makes a connection with mature student, Holly Carpenter, a single mother who has to work several jobs to make ends meet. But what Keith discovers as his desired life may be threatened if his misogyny on campus - namely an inappropriate relationship with student, Karen Gabney, which he initially didn't understand from his Hollywood mentality was inappropriate - is discovered, especially by Dr. Weldon.—Huggo