Just Like in the Movies

Michael Gersh is a third generation Hollywood insider. Rachel Scanlon is an inexperienced nobody fresh out of New York who comes to Los Angeles to make movies. Rachel learns the business from the bottom up, falling in love with her predatory agent and finally raising the money and directing her own independent film. Mike takes a long fall from the top after a ruinous confrontation with a major movie star. He crosses paths with Rachel but never meets her: feuding with her agent, getting fired over her script, watching her short film at the Sundance film festival. Rachel sees him there, watches him, falling in love from a distance, as he makes fun of a pompous producer and buys her friend’s movie for his boutique studio with the absurd flourish of a quote ( “Fifty million lire!”) from Diana Ross’ trash classic, Mahogany. When Mike and Rachel finally meet, at the New York Film Festival, in the battered aftermath of 9/11, it’s obvious: all they ever needed was each other.