Henry Levin

In 1931 Paris, Anais Nin meets Henry Miller and his wife June. Intrigued by them both, she begins expanding her sexual horizons with her husband Hugo as well as with Henry and others. June shuttles between Paris and New York trying to find acting jobs while Henry works on his first major work, "Tropic of Cancer," a pseudo-biography of June. Anais and Hugo help finance the book, but June is displeased with Henry's portrayal of her, and Anais and Henry have many arguments about their styles of writing on a backdrop of a Bohemian lifestyle in Paris.

By night, he’s a toll collector. By day, he expends just as much energy fending off his wife’s overtures to make some babies. That is all to say – Henry (Keanu Reeves) is expending very little energy, very little motivation, and very little ambition in his life. Henry’s life philosophy seems to be best described as “well, anything is better than this,” which explains (sort of) how he ends up in jail for a crime he (honestly) didn’t commit. An old pal knocks on Henry’s door, after one of those nights in the toll booth and mornings with Debbie (Judy Greer) begging for babies, and his vague request for Henry to join in on an intramural game is met with blank acceptance.

In 1950 15-year old Henry Dodge lives with his mother Maureen and her new husband Bill. Encouraged by his embittered,meddling paternal grandmother, Henry refuses to accept Bill and wishes to keep alive the memory of his father Joey,a decorated Dunkirk hero,killed by a deserter during an air raid.

In a working class neighborhood in Los Angeles, a world weary Henry Poole buys a house, caring little about its lack of amenities. He drinks and eats pizza. Recent stucco work has left a brown stain in a patio wall, and, to Henry's irritation, Esperanza, a neighbor, is certain she can see the face of Jesus in the stain. She brings her priest, then others. Meanwhile, Henry hears his conversations replayed over the fence in another neighbor's yard: it's Millie, about 7, mute, clutching a tape recorder. He tells Millie's mom why he's sad and angry. The face on the wall seems to shed a tear of blood. Is Henry beyond feeling any emotion?

Loosely based on serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, the film follows Henry and his roommate Otis who Henry introduces to murdering randomly selected people. The killing spree depicted in the film starts after Otis' sister Becky comes to stay with them. The people they kill are strangers and in one particularly gruesome attack, kill all three members of a family during a home invasion. Henry lacks compassion in everything he does and isn't the kind to leave behind witnesses - of any kind.

Socially inept garbage man Simon is befriended by Henry Fool, a witty roguish, but talent-less novelist. Henry opens a magical world of literature to Simon who turns his hand to writing the 'great American poem'. As Simon begins his controversial ascent to the dizzying heights of Nobel Prize winning poet, Henry sinks to a life of drinking in low-life bars. The two friends fall out and lose touch until Henry's criminal past catches up with him and he needs Simon's help to flee the country.