An ambitious young actress comes to Berlin to convince an American ex-pat filmmaker she must be his next muse. Hartley's conscientious assistant in Berlin receives weekly letters from her boss and sends him the books he needs as he struggles in Amsterdam to stage Dutch composer Louis Andriessen's opera, "la Commedia". A commercially realistic but artistically conflicted playwright lends his Berlin apartment to a young actress friend so she can rehearse her drama school audition while he goes off to save his doomed production in New York. Hartley and his wife, Miho Nikaido, travel to Japan to see her parents and reflect on 12 years of marriage, her career ambitions, and the adventures of growing older. An artist-criminal far from home asks his assistant to pirate a rare videotape before the German Post Office Authorities come to confiscate it.