Jewish college professor Larry Gopnik lives a quiet suburban life with his wife and two teenage children in the American Midwest. But everything begins to unravel when his wife says she has decided to leave him.
Larry finds himself in a spiral of frustration and disaster, not helped by a student trying to bribe him, a racist neighbour to one side and the seductive Mrs Samsky to the other. The rabbi is always too busy to talk to Larry and his brother is locked permanently in Larry's bathroom.