Joe Green is a fat, unsociable, unproductive, miserable and phobia-ridden writer whose one hit play is the subject of a transatlantic phone call from a New York actress, suffering from a paralysing disease, who wants to perform the play off-off Broadway. Joe and Sarah become friends over the phone, but when she finally arrives in London to take their relationship a step further Joe's neurotic terrors almost, but not quite, kill the love affair completely.