Plot
Struggling former child actor and now-adult screenwriter Monkey Zetterland (Antin) is working on a historical screenplay based around the defunct Red Car subway of Los Angeles. He lives in a building owned by his neurotic mother Honor Zetterland (Katherine Helmond), who is a famous soap opera star. Secretly hoping there is a future in acting for Monkey, she is trying to turn her hairdresser son (his brother) Brent Zetterland (Tate Donovan) into a film star.
As the film begins, Honor shows up at Monkey's house to borrow his epsom salts at the same time that his disagreeable girlfriend Daphne (Debi Mazar) arrives. From this point on the film dissolves into a character study with little plot development as new and old characters interact and form a quirky family unit. Sister Grace Zetterland (Patricia Arquette) arrives in tears to reveal that her lesbian girlfriend (Sophia Coppola) has gotten pregnant in an attempt to bring the two of them closer. Honor rents the basement apartment to Sascha (Rupert Everett) and Sofie (Martha Plimpton), a gay man and lesbian posing as husband and wife while publishing an underground newsletter that outs closeted homosexuals in the entertainment industry.
As if this weren't enough, a creepy woman (Ricki Lake) shows up with a fan letter for Honor, and another kooky lady, Imogene (Sandra Bernhard), begins heavily, openly pursuing Monkey's attention. After a series of confrontations, Daphne moves out, and around the same time the family's absentee father (who has frequently left home for long periods of time throughout their lives) surfaces in time for Thanksgiving.
While everyone busies themselves with their personal issues, Grace discovers that Sascha and Sofie are in fact terrorists who intend to bomb a local insurance agency that is denying medical coverage to people with HIV and AIDS. Sofie comes up with a plan to send Grace into the agency with a bomb, which Grace and Sascha believe is set up to give Grace enough time to escape. It is not, and Grace dies in the explosion.
This event pulls everyone out of their own selfish interests and forces them to re-examine their lives and the people around them. The patriarch of the family disappears again; Grace's lover and her baby are taken in by the family, and Monkey decides to let Imogene get closer to him. Then, just as things are starting to fall into place, Monkey comes home to find his apartment ransacked and his finally finished script stolen. It was his only copy.
Later that evening the woman who left a fan letter for Honor arrives with Monkey's stolen script and a gun. She tries to shoot Honor, but hits the family dog instead. She is taken down, but the ensuing drama pulls the remaining emotional conflicts of the family into place. Honor accepts that Monkey is never going to become a famous actor. Instead of pushing him that way, she uses her connections to get his script produced - with brother Brent as the star.
Read more about this topic: Inside Monkey Zetterland
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““The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered.”
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—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
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—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)