Based on a play by David Rabe, Hurlyburly is about the intersecting lives of several Hollywood players and wannabes, whose dysfunctional personal lives are more interesting than anything they're peddling to the studios.
Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy's grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy's birthday cake.
In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a gay hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.
Sam Clayton's (Vincent D'Onofrio) marriage to ex-stripper Freddie (Cameron Diaz) comes about when she's strong-armed into the match by Red (Delroy Lindo), a club proprietor who once did her a favor. But Freddie falls in love with Jjaks (Keanu Reeves), Sam's brother, and the pair tries to escape the situation together. It isn't long before both Sam and Red catch up with them, resulting in threats against the two of them -- although tension also starts to build between Sam and Red.