Can a straight-laced woman find happiness with a scruffy hippie who has a bad habit of getting beaten up? Minnie Moore (
Gena Rowlands)
was a prom queen in high school but has become disillusioned with life
now that she is a divorcée who has just turned 40. Her marriage ended
badly, and her current relationship with her boyfriend Jim (
John Cassavetes),
who is inconveniently married to another woman, is hardly going any
better. Jim treats Minnie with little respect, but she tries to calmly
soldier on with her work as a curator at a museum. When Jim's wife
threatens to commit suicide if he doesn't break off his affair with
Minnie, he agrees to stop seeing her.
He goes to museum where Minnie
works, bringing along his two children to serve as witnesses, and he
tells her that they're through. Emotionally shattered by this
experience, Minnie blankly and uncomprehendingly accepts a blind date
with a loud-mouthed boor named Zelmo Swift (
Val Avery),
who proposes marriage only an hour after they've met. Angered by her
lack of enthusiasm for this proposal, Zelmo angrily follows Minnie to a
nearby parking lot, where the attendant, Seymour Moskowitz (
Seymour Cassel), comes to her rescue, though he hardly emerges victorious in battle.
