But the night leads to romantic complications that also involve Hav's recording-artist boyfriend, Michael Simmons, her best friend, Caroline, and her married sister, Leigh.

Three months later, after a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 1997, Harvey Weinstein offered to buy Hav Plenty for an amount between $1.5 – $2.3 million.

[7] After screenings at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1998 to start the official "buzz", Miramax theatrically released Hav Plenty in the United States on June 19, 1998, with distribution expanding nationwide.

Stephen Holden (The New York Times) said, "With his self-deflating cool and amused insight into the shallowness of the buppie world in which he drifts, Lee is one of the most original and likable characters to pop up in a movie in quite a while.

"[8] Emanuel Levy (Variety) said, "Christopher Scott Cherot makes a splashy debut as writer, director, editor and star of this fresh, bittersweet, modern-day love story that recalls the early work of Woody Allen.