Sixteen year old Finn Earl lives with his Swedish massage trained mother Liz Earl in New York City, Finn who wants to get out from under her control in he often needing to be the adult between the two of them. She used to have an above board approach to her work, but has transitioned into doing massage work proverbially advertised in the back of disreputable magazines in order not only to satisfy her sexual needs but support her substance abuse, largely of cocaine and alcohol. Finn had been invited by his biological father, a world famous anthropologist who he's never met, to spend the summer with him in South America where he is currently living among and studying the Ishkanani tribe of peoples. But an incident not only kiboshes Finn's ability to travel abroad but shows Liz that she has to clean up her act for her and Finn's sakes. As such, she is easily able to convince aged Ogden C. Osborne, one of her more adoring non-sexual clients and the seventh richest man in the United States...

Writer and Director Bob Rafelson has stated that this is the final part of an informal trilogy he started with Five Easy Pieces (1970) and continued with The King of Marvin Gardens (1972). In the three, Nicholson has now played son, brother, and father. In this one, Nicholson is a wealthy wine dealer who has distanced himself from his wife with his philandering, and from his son with his negligence. After he steals a diamond necklace with the help of a safecracker partner, Victor, things start coming apart. His wife sets out to interrupt what she thinks is another one of his weekend dalliances, but is really his trip to pawn the jewels.

College student Valerie, 21, agrees to be a surrogate mother. But when the biological parents die tragically, the "grandmother" Madeline becomes more and more controlling of Valerie and the unborn child until Valerie realizes her life is in danger. She flees desperate to protect herself and the child, using a network of sorority sisters for support.

Dr. Carol Allen (Lauralee Bell), a kind-hearted Ivy League alum and single mom whose high-achieving and well-rounded daughter (Heather Hopkins) gets accepted into the same university. At her daughter's suggestion, she takes in a hard-luck student so she won't be living alone when her daughter starts college. Rob Malenfant directs Nightmare Tenant, and Ken Sanders produced it in a reteaming with his Mistress Hunter star Bell.

Scrooge encounters the ghost of her late business partner, who warns that three spirits will visit her this night. The ghosts take Carol on a journey through her past, present and future in the hopes of transforming her bitterness.

A group of friends reunites after many years to resolve an unsolved disappearance from their youth. The group must overcome the cynical worldview they have developed in their many year absence to remember the light.