| Director | Ben Stiller |
|---|---|
| Genre | LGBT-related film, coming-of-age film, drama film, romantic comedy film |
| Runtime | 94 min |
| Country | United States |
| Budget | $11.5 million |
| Box office | $41 million |
Four friends who are recent college graduates live together in Houston, Texas. Coffeehouse guitarist Troy Dyer and budding filmmaker Lelaina Pierce are attracted to each other, although they have not acted on their feelings except for one brief, drunken encounter years ago. Troy is floundering, having lost several minimum-wage jobs—the last of which he loses for stealing a candy bar from his employer. Lelaina was valedictorian of her university and aspires to make documentaries, although initially has to settle for a position as production assistant to rude and obnoxious TV host Grant Gubler.
Lelaina meets Michael Grates when throwing a lit cigarette into his convertible causes him to crash into her car. They begin dating. He works as an executive at an MTV-like channel called In Your Face and after seeing a documentary she has been working on, wants to get it aired on his network.
Lelaina's roommate Vickie Miner has a series of one-night stands and short relationships with dozens of men; her promiscuity leads her to face a very real risk of contracting HIV after a former fling tests positive for the virus. Working as a sales associate for the Gap, Vickie is later promoted to manager and is content with her new job. Her friend Sammy Gray is gay; he remains celibate, not due to a fear of AIDS but because forming a relationship would force him to come out to his conservative parents.
After an impulsive act of retribution against Grant, Lelaina loses her job, which causes some tension with her roommates. Eventually, Vickie's HIV test comes back negative and Sammy comes out to his parents (and he even starts dating) and the two manage to resume their lives. Meanwhile, Lelaina's relationship with Michael dissolves after he helps her sell the documentary to his network, only to let them edit it into a stylized montage that compromises her artistic vision. Lelaina and Troy have a heart-to-heart which leads to them sleeping together and confessing their feelings. The morning after, he avoids her, and after a messy confrontation, leaves town. When Troy's father dies, it forces him to reevaluate his life, deciding to attempt a relationship with Lelaina.
Troy and Lelaina reunite and make amends once he returns from his father's funeral in Chicago. While we do not see what happens to Michael, during the credits there is an abrupt break where two characters, "Elaina" and "Roy", who are obvious parodies of Lelaina and Troy, have an argument about their relationship. As the "show's" credits roll, Michael's name is revealed as the creator, implying that he has turned the relationship between Lelaina and Troy into the subject of a new show on his network.