Jennifer (Leelee Sobieski) is seventeen. With her multiple piercings, all-black wardrobe and frequent cemetery visits, Jennifer works hard to keep the world at a distance. Fascinated with death because she is afraid of life, Jennifer is more innocent and more in need than she would ever dare let on.

Randall (Albert Brooks) stands in complete contrast — a precise, well-ordered man of forty-nine who runs a conservative men’s clothing store in an upscale shopping mall. Randall keeps everything under control. Underneath all the protective coloring of middle class comfort, Randall is deeply afraid, nursing secret regrets about the past and hidden terror of the future. His loneliness is awesome.

Two total opposites. Each of them long-term prisoners of their own highly developed emotional armor, this wildly dissimilar pair should never meet, never connect at all. But when Randall, against his better judgement, hires Jennifer as a stock-person, a friendship that seemed impossible becomes inevitable and, along the way — transforms Jennifer’s life and creates in her a passion to make connections and build a family…one strong enough to deal with loss and change.