The story follows a Hollywood agent, Ivan Beckman (Huston), who must force a smile and carry on with business as usual with the agency's biggest client, Don West (Weller), in the face of a cancer diagnosis.

The film, loosely based on Leo Tolstoy's 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, was also inspired by the rise and fall of talent agent Jay Moloney.

It was shot at 60i fps on the Sony HDW-700A HD video format digital camera, which proved problematic for theatrical distribution.

[1][4] On its opening weekend in the United States and Canada, the film was ranked at #71, behind The Salton Sea, The Singles Ward and a re-release of Beauty and the Beast.

On film aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 77% rating, with an average score of 6.8/10, sampled from reviews from 30 critics.