Aspiring actor Mark has pretty much hit rock bottom. He has just endured yet another fruitless audition, and his girlfriend Sally is about to discover that, due to his penury, he has not been paying the rent for several months. Sally can't understand why their landlord, Jack, doesn't do the very long list of repairs required to make their increasingly ramshackle apartment more habitable. Mark knows that Sally will ask Jack as soon as she sees him, and that Jack will tell her the truth. This also means that their little cobbled-together family, which includes Mark's paralyzed brother David and their dog Jersey, will be out on the street.