In Verona Beach, the Capulets and Montagues are two rival business empires. The animosity of the older generation—Fulgencio and Gloria Capulet and Ted and Caroline Montague—is felt by their younger relatives. A shootout occurs between Montague Benvolio, Romeo 's cousin, and Capulet Tybalt, Juliet 's cousin, creating chaos in the city. The Chief of Police, Captain Prince, arrests Benvolio and Tybalt before reprimanding the families, warning them that if such an event occurs again, their lives "shall pay the forfeit of the peace". Benvolio and Romeo learn of a Capulet party that evening, which they decide to gate-crash. Romeo agrees on hearing that Rosaline, with whom he is madly in love, is attending. They meet their friend, Mercutio, who has tickets to the party, and Romeo takes ecstasy as they proceed to the Capulet mansion. The effects of the drug and the party overwhelm Romeo, who goes to the restroom. There he sees and meets Juliet, and the two instantly fall in love, both unaware of who the other is. Tybalt spots Romeo and vows to kill him for trespassing into his family's home. After Romeo leaves the party, he and Juliet each learn that they belong to the feuding families, but he returns to propose to her. She tells him that if he sends word by the following day, they will be betrothed. The next day, Romeo asks Father Laurence to marry them, and he agrees. Romeo passes the word on via Juliet's nurse, and they soon get married. Tybalt encounters the Montagues and Mercutio at the beach. Romeo then comes and attempts to make peace, but Tybalt assaults him. Mercutio intervenes and batters Tybalt, and is about to kill him when Romeo stops him. Tybalt takes the opportunity to fatally wound Mercutio, who curses both houses before dying. Enraged, Romeo chases after the fleeing Tybalt and shoots him dead, avenging Mercutio's death. Captain Prince banishes Romeo from the city, so he goes into hiding with Father Laurence. The nurse arrives and tells him that Juliet is waiting for him. Romeo climbs Juliet's balcony and they consummate their marriage, with him departing the next morning. Meanwhile, Fulgencio decides Juliet will marry Dave Paris, the governor's son. The next morning, Gloria informs Juliet that she is to marry Paris at St. Peter's Church. When Juliet refuses, Fulgencio physically assaults her and threatens to disown her if she doesn't accept it. She runs away and seeks out Father Laurence, imploring him to help her, while threatening to commit suicide. He gives her a potion that will let her fake her own death, after which she will be placed within the Capulet vault to awaken 24 hours later. Father Laurence vows to inform Romeo of the plot via overnight letter, whereupon the latter will sneak into the vault. Once reunited with Juliet, the two will escape to Mantua, the remote trailer park in the desert where Romeo has been hiding out. However, Romeo does not see the delivered letter so, believing Juliet to be dead, buys a vial of poison from an apothecary. Romeo enters the church where Juliet lies and consumes the poison just as Juliet wakes up. Distraught over his death, she shoots herself in the head with his gun, falling down beside his lifeless body. As the bodies of both Romeo and Juliet are being loaded onto ambulances, the parents of both houses arrive at the scene. Captain Prince approaches their fathers, berating them both for the deaths of their children that their foolish feud has caused.

Harris K. Telemacher is a television weatherman living in Los Angeles. He is in a dead-end relationship with his social-climbing girlfriend Trudi and feels his job requires him to be undignified and unintellectual, though he holds a Ph.D. in arts and humanities. He wants to find meaning and magic in his life, having grown increasingly weary of what he sees as the rather shallow and superficial city of L.A., from overly pretentious coffee orders to bizarre shooting etiquette rules on the freeway. Furthermore, he spends his time roller-skating through art galleries with his friend Ariel, offering eccentric art reviews to acquaintances, remixing Shakespeare a lot, and otherwise seeking to escape his ordinary life. At a luncheon with friends, Harris meets Sara, a journalist from London, with whom he immediately becomes infatuated. Driving home that night, his car breaks down on the freeway. He notices that a freeway traffic condition sign seems to be displaying messages intended solely for him. It offers him cryptic advice on his love life throughout the movie. Harris begins to fall for Sara, but she is conflicted because she has pledged to reconcile with her ex-husband, Roland. Feeling that a relationship with Sara is unlikely, Harris begins dating SanDeE*, a ditzy aspiring spokesmodel, whom he meets at a clothing store. After his first date with her, Harris discovers Trudi has been cheating on him (with his agent) for three years. This leads him to pursue his romantic interest in Sara, which is complicated by his new relationship with SanDeE* and by Sara's feeling of obligation to Roland. As the movie concludes, Harris has successfully wooed Sara – with encouragement and advice from the freeway sign.

New York City taxi driver Jerry Fletcher is a passionate conspiracy theorist, happily sharing his ideas with anyone who will listen. His favorite audience is Justice Department lawyer Alice Sutton, who tolerates him because he once saved her from a mugging but is unaware he spies on her at home. She is haunted by the murder of her father, a judge, which her boss Mr. Wilson believes was ordered by an inmate her father denied an appeal. One day, Jerry notices some men he surmises to be CIA agents, who lure him into a trap. They bring him to a man who, claiming to know Jerry well, injects him with LSD and demands to know who he has been talking to "about us." Experiencing terrifying hallucinations and flashbacks, Jerry manages to escape after biting the interrogator's nose, but is injured when the wheelchair he is taped to falls down a flight of stairs and a metal rod pierces his abdomen. Accosting Alice in the Justice Department lobby, a frantic, bloodied Jerry grabs a security guard's gun and is arrested. Taken to the hospital, Jerry is handcuffed to a bed and drugged. Before losing consciousness, he begs Alice to switch his chart with the criminal in the next bed, claiming he will be dead by morning otherwise. When Alice returns the next day, the criminal has died from an alleged heart attack and the police, along with the FBI and the CIA, arrive to ID the body, believing it to be Jerry's. The CIA is led by a psychiatrist named Dr. Jonas, whose nose is bandaged. Jerry fakes a heart attack and, with a reluctant Alice's help, escapes again. Alice and FBI Agent Lowry examine Jerry's belongings before the CIA confiscates them. She returns to her car to find Jerry hiding in the back seat. While driving, Jerry explains someone is likely following her. Alice waves the suspicious car on to discover it is Lowry; she convinces him to leave her alone until she has more information to offer. At Jerry's apartment, he suspects that something in the conspiracy newsletter he produces has set off this sudden interest in him, but has no idea what it is. Alice, meanwhile, begins to grasp the depths of Jerry's paranoia and loneliness, including his compulsion to buy copies of Catcher in the Rye despite never reading it. Just as she's decided he is crazy, a SWAT team starts to break in. Jerry activates devices that incinerate the apartment and they leave through a hidden trapdoor. In the room below, Alice is startled by a mural of her riding a horse - something she gave up after her father's murder - and the triple smokestacks of the Ravenswood Generating Station. Jerry disguises himself as a firefighter and carries Alice past emergency services and an arriving Jonas. They go to her apartment, where Jerry inadvertently reveals he has been watching Alice and is kicked out. Down on the street, Jerry notices Lowry and his partner staking out the apartment and warns them off at gunpoint. After a compulsive purchase at a bookstore is flagged by the CIA, Jerry flees from agents into a theater and escapes by faking a bomb threat. Alice is told by Mr. Wilson that the Justice Department must cooperate with Dr. Jonas to locate Jerry. Suspicious, she calls each person on Jerry's mailing list and finds that all but one, Harry Finch, have recently died. Jerry disables the CIA's van and uses a ruse to get Alice out of the office. While escaping through a subway station, he tells her that he fell in love with her at first sight, fleeing on a subway train when she brushes off his feelings. Alice goes to see Harry Finch, who turns out to be Jonas. He explains that he helped develop the MKUltra program, unofficially continuing it after being shut down in 1973. His brainwashing techniques, which he used to turn people like Jerry into assassins, were stolen by an unknown party, who he needs Jerry to identify. He also claims that Jerry killed Alice's father. She agrees to help find Jerry, who sends her a message to meet him. Ditching the agents by causing a traffic jam on the Queensboro Bridge and switching cars, he drives her to her father's private horse stables in Connecticut. Along the way, Alice secretly calls her office so Jonas and Wilson can track her phone. At the stables, Jerry remembers that he was programmed to kill her father but the sight of Alice dissuaded him. Instead, he became friends with the judge, remembering the inmate who was denied the appeal was actually innocent, and promised to watch over Alice after her father was mortally wounded by another assassin. Jonas' men arrive, capturing Jerry and killing Wilson, but Alice manages to escape. Alice brings Lowry to the offices where she met Jonas, which they find cleared out. She forces Lowry at gunpoint to admit that he is not actually FBI, but from a "secret agency that watches the other agencies". They have been using the unwitting Jerry to flush out Jonas and find out who he has been building assassins for. Alice goes to Ravenswood and sees a mental hospital next door. She breaks in and finds Jerry just as groups led by Jonas and Lowry arrive, setting off a gun battle. Jerry attempts to drown Jonas, who pulls an ankle gun and shoots Jerry before being killed by Alice. She tells Jerry she loves him before he is taken away in an ambulance. Some time later, a grieving Alice visits Jerry's grave and leaves a pin that he had given her. She takes up horse riding again. Observing Alice from a car with Lowry, Jerry - whose death and burial had been faked by the secret agency - reaffirms his agreement not to contact her until the rest of Jonas's subjects are caught. As they drive away singing " Can't Take My Eyes Off You ", Alice finds the pin attached to her saddle, and smiles. Among the numerous conspiracy theories mentioned by Jerry include Rockefeller Center, fluoridation, the United Nations, the JFK assassination, Watergate funder Armand Hammer, the "New World Order", Freemasons, the CIA, the Vatican, microchipping of pets, Moon landings, Pearl Harbor, and silent "Black Helicopters".

On a foggy night in 1850, Mary Rutledge and retired Colonel Marcus Aurelius Cobb arrive in San Francisco Bay aboard the clipper ship Flying Cloud. She had come to wed a wealthy owner of a gold mine, but he had lost his mine at the roulette wheel when the ball landed on red 13 times at the Bella Donna, a gambling house and restaurant. The men at the wharf reluctantly inform her that her fiancé is dead, murdered most likely by Louis Chamalis, the powerful owner of the Bella Donna. Mary is upset, but quickly pulls herself together. Mary meets Chamalis and goes to work for him. Chamalis gives her the name "Swan" and showers her with extravagant gifts. Their relationship sours quickly because Swan is angered by Chamalis's destructive power-mongering. She does not, however, mind running a crooked roulette wheel and cheating the miners out of their gold. Colonel Cobb purchases a printing press, with the intention of starting a respectable newspaper for the people of San Francisco. His first issue includes an article criticizing an unpunished murder by Chamalis and his men. When Chamalis finds out, he threatens to destroy Cobb's printing press and burn down the building, but is halted by Swan. Chamalis demands that Cobb never print anything attacking him. The colonel unwillingly complies. Swan becomes disillusioned with her life in San Francisco. Her distant behavior irks Chamalis. One morning, she sets out on horseback. When it begins to rain heavily, she seeks refuge in a seemingly abandoned cabin, where she meets poet and gold miner Jim Carmichael. Swan is taken with him, but lies about her current situation after hearing his criticisms of the city. He gives her his book of poems as a memento. Carmichael decides to return to New York. Because of fog, the ship will not leave for a few days. He meets Chamalis's helper, Old Atrocity, who, seeing his bags of gold is happy to show him to the Bella Donna. Carmichael is surprised to find Mary working there. He is served drugged liquor and plays roulette at her table. He loses his composure, insults Swan and eventually loses his money. Carmichael wakes the following morning in the Bella Donna's kitchen. His eloquent speech impresses Chamalis, who hires him on the spot as a waiter. Carmichael's presence bothers Mary, who offers him money to depart. Carmichael refuses, wishing to earn the fare on his own. Cobb puts up a poster telling about a murder Chamalis ordered and how the Bella Donna cheats customers. Seeing it, Chamalis's henchman "Knuckles" Jacoby shoots both the man who put it up and the publisher when he tries to defend him. Dying, Cobb orders his assistant to print the truth. Vigilantes hang Knuckles. Devastated by Cobb's death, Mary acknowledges her love for Carmichael, and works the roulette table so that he wins back the gold he lost. Chamalis finds out and sets out to kill Carmichael. The lovers decide to leave together. They find a rowboat and attempt to board the ship in the harbor. They have trouble seeing in the fog, but can hear Chamalis pursuing them. He shoots and injures Carmichael, and corners them beneath a pier. Mary begs him, as proof of his love for her, not to kill Carmichael. Chamalis agrees, but tells her he does not want her anymore. The sheriff arrives with a mob, and Chamalis allows himself to be taken away. Mary returns to Carmichael's side aboard the ship as it prepares to set sail.

The Black Rebels Motorcycle Club (BRMC), led by Johnny Strabler, rides into Carbonville, California, during a motorcycle race and causes trouble. A member of the motorcycle club, Pidgeon, steals the second-place trophy (the first place one being too large to hide) and presents it to Johnny. After an altercation with a steward, a Highway Patrol policeman orders them to leave. The bikers head to Wrightsville, which has only one elderly, conciliatory lawman, Chief Harry Bleeker, to maintain order. The residents are uneasy, but mostly willing to put up with their visitors. When their antics cause Art Kleiner to swerve and crash his car, he demands that something be done, but Harry is reluctant to act, a weakness that is not lost on the interlopers. This accident results in the gang having to stay longer in town, as one member called Crazy injured himself falling off his motorcycle. Although the young men become more and more boisterous, their club is enthusiastically welcomed by Harry's brother Frank who runs the local cafe-bar, employing Harry's daughter, Kathie, and the elderly Jimmy. Johnny meets Kathie and asks her out to a dance being held that night. Kathie politely turns him down, but Johnny's dark, brooding personality visibly intrigues her. When Mildred, another local girl, asks him, "Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?", he answers "Whaddaya got?" Johnny is attracted to Kathie and decides to stay a while. However, when he learns that she is the policeman's daughter, he changes his mind. A rival biker club arrives. Their leader Chino bears a grudge against Johnny. Chino reveals the two groups used to be one large club before Johnny split it up. When Chino takes Johnny's trophy, the two start fighting and Johnny wins. Meanwhile, local Charlie Thomas stubbornly tries to drive through; he hits a parked motorcycle and injures Meatball, one of Chino's bikers. Chino pulls Charlie out and leads both gangs to overturn his car. Harry starts arresting Chino and Charlie, but when other townspeople remind Harry that Charlie would cause problems for him in the future, he only takes Chino to the station. Later that night some members of the rival biker club harass Dorothy, the telephone switchboard operator into leaving, thereby disrupting the townspeople's communication, while the BRMC abducts Charlie and puts him in the same jail cell as Chino, who is too drunk to leave with the club. Later, as both clubs wreck the town and intimidate the residents, some bikers led by Gringo chase and surround Kathie, but Johnny rescues her and takes her on a long ride in the countryside. Frightened at first, Kathie comes to see that Johnny is genuinely attracted to her and means her no harm. When she opens up to him and asks to go with him, he rejects her. Crying, she runs away. Johnny drives off to search for her. Art sees and misinterprets this as an attack. The townspeople have had enough. Johnny's supposed assault on Kathie is the last straw. Vigilantes led by Charlie chase and catch Johnny and beat him mercilessly, but he escapes on his motorcycle when Harry confronts the mob. The mob give chase. Johnny is hit by a thrown tire iron and falls. His riderless motorcycle strikes and kills Jimmy. Sheriff Stew Singer arrives with his deputies and restores order. Johnny is initially arrested for Jimmy's death, with Kathie pleading on his behalf. Seeing this, Art and Frank state that Johnny was not responsible for the tragedy, with Johnny being unable to thank them. The motorcyclists are ordered to leave the county, albeit paying for all damage. However, Johnny returns alone to Wrightsville and revisits the cafe to say goodbye to Kathie one final time. He first tries to hide his humiliation and acts as though he is leaving after getting a cup of coffee, but then he returns, smiles and gives her the stolen trophy as a gift.

About 10,000 years ago, peaceful aliens from the planet Antarea established an outpost on Earth, on Atlantis. When Atlantis sank, 20 aliens were left behind, kept alive in rock-like cocoons at the bottom of the ocean. A group of Antareans have returned to collect them. Disguising themselves as humans, they rent a house with a swimming pool and charge the water with "life force" to give the cocooned Antareans energy to survive the trip home. They charter a boat, the Manta III, from a local captain named Jack, who helps them retrieve the cocoons. Jack spies on Kitty, a beautiful woman from the team who chartered his boat, while she undresses in her cabin, and discovers that she is an alien. After the aliens reveal themselves to him and explain what is going on, he decides to help them. Next door to the house the Antareans are renting is a retirement home. Three of its residents—Ben, Arthur, and Joe—often trespass to swim in the pool. They absorb some of the life force, making them feel younger and stronger. Caught in the act, they are permitted to use the pool by the Antarean leader, Walter, on the condition that they do not touch the cocoons or tell anybody else about it. Kitty and Jack grow closer and decide to have sex in the pool. Since she cannot do so in the human manner, she introduces him to the Antarean equivalent, in which she shares her life force energy with him. The other retirement home residents become suspicious after witnessing Mary, Ben's wife, climb a tree. Their friend Bernie mindlessly reveals the secret to the other residents, who rush to the pool to swim. When Walter finds them damaging one of the cocoons, he ejects them from the property. The Antareans open the damaged cocoon, and the creature inside shares his last moments with Walter. That evening, Bernie finds that his wife Rose has stopped breathing and carries her body to the pool to heal her, only to be informed by Walter that the pool no longer works due to the other residents draining the life force in the rush to make themselves young. Walter explains that the cocoons cannot survive the trip back to Antarea but will be able to survive on Earth. With the help of Jack, Ben, Arthur, and Joe, the Antareans return the cocoons to the sea. The Antareans offer to take residents of the retirement home to Antarea, where they will never grow older and never die. Most of them accept the offer, but Bernie chooses to remain on Earth. Upon leaving, Ben tells his grandson David that he and Mary are leaving for good. As the residents are leaving, David's mother, Susan, finds out about their destination and drives to the retirement home, where they find the majority of the rooms vacant and contact local authorities. While the police are searching for the residents in the dark, David notices Jack's boat being started, with the Antareans and the retirement residents aboard. He runs toward it, and as the Manta III pulls away from the dock, leaps across the gap, clings to its side, and is pulled aboard by Ben. The boat is chased by the Coast Guard, so David says goodbye to Ben and Mary before jumping into the sea. The Coast Guard boats stop to pick him up, giving the others a chance to get away. A thick, mysterious fog appears suddenly, stranding the Coast Guard boats and causing the Manta III to disappear from their radar, so they call off the chase. As the Antarean ship appears overhead, Walter pays Jack for his services and his boat. Jack embraces Kitty for the last time, and they kiss. He then says farewell to everyone before jumping into an inflatable life raft as the Manta III rises into the Antarean vessel. Jack watches as it disappears inside the ship and departs. Back on land, a memorial service is held on a beach for the missing residents. During the sermon, David looks toward the sky and smiles.

In 1501, a city in Italy was taken by a coup d'état while its rightful ruler, Arnolfini, was away. Arnolfini promises some mercenaries 24 hours of looting if they succeed in retaking the city, and they do so, raping and killing those who stand in their way. In their revelry, Arnolfini decides that he wants the mercenaries gone. Hawkwood, the commander of the troops, cares for a young nun he mistakenly attacked during the siege. Arnolfini promises to get medical attention for her, while Hawkwood leads Arnolfini's cavalry, betraying his former lieutenant, Martin. The cavalry ejects the mercenaries from the city without their loot. Martin's son is later stillborn. Burying the infant unearths a wooden statue of Saint Martin of Tours —a saint with a sword. The mercenaries' chaplain views this as a sign from God to follow Martin as their new leader. Arnolfini's son Steven is betrothed to Agnes. They meet for the first time and eat from a mandrake to magically fall in love, and later the entourage is attacked and robbed by Martin's band. Arnolfini is seriously injured; Kathleen, Agnes' lady-in-waiting, is killed; and Agnes is hauled away, concealed among her valuable dowry. Martin discovers Agnes that evening as they strip the caravan of valuables. The men desire to rape her but Martin decides to take her himself. He rapes Agnes in front of the caravan while she at first taunts him, and then begs Martin's protection when he is finished. Martin prevents the rest of the men from raping her. The mercenaries come upon a castle where, unknown to them, the inhabitants are infected with the plague. They capture the castle with the help of Agnes. She induces Martin to fall in love with her and works on the other mercenaries to accept her. She appears to have given up on her former life. Determined to rescue her, Steven turns to Hawkwood. Hawkwood only wants to live a quiet life, married to the former nun. Steven, becoming as ruthless as his father, seizes her to force Hawkwood to help his pursuit of Martin. Steven's party locates Martin and the mercenaries. They do not have sufficient force to take the castle and lay siege to it. In the castle, Martin asks Agnes where her true loyalty lies; she is noncommittal, hinting that the winner takes all. Outside, the plague spreads among Steven's forces and infects Hawkwood. Steven builds a siege tower to storm the castle, and Martin destroys it with something Steven had tried earlier: gunpowder. Steven's soldiers are killed as Steven scales the tower's ladders, and falls into the castle grounds. The mercenaries capture Steven and shackle him in the courtyard; Agnes joins in his abuse. Using a new medical technique Steven learned (cutting the buboes on the infected body), Hawkwood cures his plague. He cannot continue the siege alone but, before leaving for additional troops, he and the physician, Father George, catapult pieces of an infected dog into the castle. One chunk lands near the chained Steven; he initially warns Martin of the danger of the dog, but flings it into the castle's water well after seeing Agnes acquiesce to Martin's sexual demands. Steven says that she can decide whether to tell the mercenaries. The mercenaries wish to leave the castle, fearing the plague, but Martin persuades them to stay. At the next meal, Agnes watches as they drink infected water. As Martin begins to drink, she slaps the cup from his hand, just as the mercenaries begin to show signs of the plague. The party blame Martin, and hurl him into the well. Agnes then joins in the abuse of Martin. After the throng departs, Steven needs Martin's key to escape from the shackles, and Martin needs Steven to get out of the well. The two cooperate, but upon seeing that Hawkwood and Arnolfini recovered from their wounds and returned with an army, Martin flees to the belfry. Using a lightning storm to strike the chain, Steven frees himself and, as the battle rages, races to find Agnes. During the fighting, the belfry catches fire. All the mercenaries, save Martin, Polly, Anna, and Little John, end up dead. Martin confronts Agnes, who claims that she loves him. He prepares to murder her rather than allow her to return to Steven. As Martin is strangling Agnes, Steven attacks. Martin overpowers Steven and almost drowns him, but Agnes strikes Martin on the head, and she and Steven flee the blazing castle and reunite with Hawkwood. As Agnes and Steven embrace, Agnes sees Martin over Steven's shoulder, escaping from the castle, a sack of loot on his shoulder. She says nothing.

On July 5, a mysterious phenomenon briefly darkens the sky over Hamilton, New Zealand. Zac Hobson, a scientist working on Project Flashlight (an experiment designed to create a wireless global energy grid), awakens to find all radio transmissions silent. He soon discovers that humanity has vanished, evidenced by deserted cities and the wreckage of a passenger plane with no bodies. At his laboratory, Zac finds his superior Perrin dead and a message indicating that Project Flashlight has been completed. Concluding that the experiment caused the mass disappearance, which he calls “The Effect,” Zac narrowly escapes the lab's automated radiation lockdown. Believing himself to be the last person on Earth, he struggles with isolation and mental instability before gradually regaining composure. Zac later encounters two other survivors: Joanne and Api. They deduce that they survived because each was momentarily clinically dead when the Effect occurred. As the three form a fragile community, Zac discovers that universal physical constants are destabilising, causing the Sun to become increasingly volatile. Fearing a second catastrophe, they decide to destroy the Flashlight facility. Zac ultimately sacrifices himself by detonating explosives at the installation just as another Effect occurs. He awakens alone on a strange beach beneath unfamiliar skies, watching a massive ringed planet rise above the horizon, uncertain of his fate or reality.

In New York City, a breaking news report informs the world that a mission to stop an incoming 70-mile-wide asteroid known as "Matilda" has failed and that it will make an impact in three weeks, destroying all life on Earth. Dodge Petersen and his wife, Linda, listen to the broadcast parked on the side of the road. When he expresses indifference, she looks disgusted and abandons both the vehicle and their marriage. Dodge stops going to his job at an insurance company where one of his co-workers has killed himself. He also attends an end-of-the-world party at the house of his best friend, where he politely avoids offers of heroin and the amorous intentions of both a stranger and his best friend's wife (on the latter, he says he cannot cheat with a married woman, but she points out that marriage means nothing now that civilization is going to end). A drunk man tells him he has never bedded so many women as now nobody cares about getting pregnant or catching diseases. At home, Dodge reminisces about his high school sweetheart, Olivia and notices his British neighbor Penny crying on the fire escape. Penny just broke up with her boyfriend Owen over him making her miss her last opportunity to see her family in England. At her apartment, Penny gives Dodge three years' worth of his mail that was incorrectly delivered to her and, in the process, unwittingly tells him that his wife was having an affair. Dodge storms off into the night, guzzling codeine -laced cough syrup and window cleaner in a suicide attempt. Dodge wakes up in a park, with a dog tethered to his foot and a note on his sweater reading "Sorry", which becomes the dog's name. Dodge takes Sorry home, opens the old mail, and is surprised to discover a three-month-old letter from Olivia, which explains that he was "the love of her life". Later, a riot breaks out in their neighborhood. Dodge and Penny abandon the self-centered Owen amid the rioters, with Dodge explaining to Penny that he knows someone who could fly her to England if she helps him find Olivia. She agrees, and they set off with Sorry for Dodge's hometown in Delaware. Along the way, Dodge and Penny run out of gas, witness the bizarre death of suicidal motorist Glenn whose plan to pay an assassin to kill him without warning pays off, see the beginning of an orgy at a chain restaurant but leave hurriedly before the frenzied sex begins, have sex themselves in a pick-up truck, and spend a night in jail. They get a ride to Camden, New Jersey, where they meet Penny's ex-boyfriend, Speck, who is prepared for the apocalypse with a well-stocked underground bunker. Speck has a working satellite phone and lets Penny contact her family. Penny and Dodge borrow a car from Speck and eventually make it to Olivia's family home. They walk up to the door of the home but find no one home and then spend the day together; they realize a mutual affection. Penny discovers a letter from Olivia to her parents, which reveals her address. Penny and Dodge drive to Olivia's home, where Dodge leaves a letter for Olivia. Later, they go to the house of the man who Dodge promised could take Penny to England. The man turns out to be his estranged father, Frank. After making amends with Frank, Dodge puts a sleeping Penny into his father's plane, whispering to her that she is the real love of his life. Frank and Penny depart, leaving Dodge behind. After one final news broadcast reveals that Matilda will make an impact one week earlier than originally reported, meaning there is less than a day left, Dodge takes refuge in Penny's apartment and awaits his imminent death; she unexpectedly returns, upset that he allowed her to leave. They lie in bed and comfort each other as they feel the tremor of the asteroid's impact. Penny regrets not having met Dodge sooner, while he assures her that their meeting had been opportune. Penny smiles as everything fades to white.