In Topanga Canyon, in a beautiful but sparely appointed house, Jean Mackenzie feels like she's suffocating in her marriage to Paul, a tightly-wound architect. "I love you, it's us I don't like," she says to him as she embarks on an affair with Paul's opposite: a burly slacker named Viggo who lives in a trailer that has no bathroom. During the affair, she stays at Viggo's and continues to have contact with Paul. Where will his anger take him? Is Viggo, who's a good listener and an enthusiastic lover, more than a catalyst? Where will Jean's search for self - and for room to breathe - take her?