When Leonard meets Sylvia by chance at a friend's shabby Greenwich Village apartment, he's instantly besotted with her striking beauty and quiet disdain. For the young aspiring writer, drifting through the city, the question of what to do with his life was resolved for the next four years. But when Sylvia's depression and disturbances begin to emerge and take hold, their fights become increasingly violent and abusive, and their relationship drifts towards self-destruction.