Plot[edit]

28-year-old Emily Hall (Dedee Pfeiffer) is a bright and talented - but frustrated - novelist whose book constantly gets rejected by publishers. Her life goes into a tailspin when her boyfriend, Mike (Eric Close), breaks up with her; her best friend, Amber (Laura Leighton), suddenly packs up and moves to Mexico; and her psychic mother, Mona (Teri Garr), surprises her with the overwhelming news that her supposedly dead father is really an errant hippie photographer named Yogi (Howard Hesseman), who has just arrived in town and wants to meet her.


Unable to get a decent job, surrounded by the success of her friends and further depressed by the approach of her 10-year high school reunion, Emily must confront the reality that she has fallen far short of the lofty goals to which she originally aspired. Her world continues in its downward spiral as she finds herself crossing paths with an ever-increasing variety of unusually eccentric people ranging from a chain-smoking Santa Claus (Chris Elliott) to an obnoxious literary agent (Sean Astin).


Faced with the problem-laden reality of her unsuccessful life, Emily lets her imagination take her down the road of wacky and ineffectual ways to kill herself. But, before she can find an acceptable form of suicide, (no pain, no gore, no guts allowed), Emily finds herself thrown into a volunteer job at a local hospital where, with her faithful dog Sam, she visits sick and terminally ill patients.


One such patient, the ever-negative Mr. Finch (Bert Remsen), seems to dislike Emily and Sam's constant intrusions into his solitary life, but with time and devotion Emily helps Mr. Finch to see the beauty and value in the world around him. Their new-found relationship proves to be the turning point for Emily, and, with Mr. Finch's help and support, Emily's faith in her own talent is restored.