The monologist film is about Spalding Gray, the main character, who is diagnosed with a rare ocular condition called macular pucker.

After hearing all of his options, such as Christian Science, Native American sweat lodges, and the "Elvis Presley of psychic surgeons", and the dangers of what surgery could bring, he decides to go through the other forms of medicine provided.

Gray's style as an actor was influenced by Allen Ginsberg, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and the American Autobiographical movement.

[5] Janet Maslin of the New York Times gave a positive review, calling it "A chatty, colorful, nicely sardonic account of how a crisis led Mr. Gray to assess his medical state, consider his mortality and take one more funny, self-dramatizing look at the eccentric world around him.

Learning that he has a macular pucker, Gray seeks out alternative therapies, including mass nude encounters in a sweatbox, a raw-vegetable diet and a trip to the Philippines to meet a psychic surgeon.