Prologue A crackling vinyl record announces that "Axxon N., the longest-running radio play in history", is turning to "a gray winter day in an old hotel". In a hotel room, the Lost Girl—a young Polish prostitute—has an unpleasant encounter with a client. Her face is blurred. After the encounter, her face becomes clear. She turns on the television and goes
channel surfing, seeing an old Eastern European woman approaching a mansion before she flips to
a show about anthropomorphic rabbits. She begins to cry.
Narrative In Los Angeles, actress Nikki Grace is waiting for the results of her audition for the lead role in the film
On High in Blue Tomorrows, a romantic drama about two people who have an affair. The old woman from the television screen visits her mansion. She asks Nikki about the film and then tells "an old tale": a boy passed through the doorway into the world, causing a reflection that gave birth to an evil that followed him. Then she tells a variation: a girl was lost in the marketplace—"as if half-born"—while the alley behind the marketplace was the way to the palace. The woman is certain that Nikki will get the role and insists that despite Nikki's claims to the contrary, the plot involves murder. The next day, Nikki learns that she got the part. She celebrates with her friends while her Polish husband Piotrek watches from a distance. Devon, who plays the male lead, is warned to not sleep with Nikki, as he has a history of on-set affairs. Piotrek warns Devon of "dark consequences" for "wrong actions". During the first rehearsal, the actors are interrupted by a disturbance on the set. Devon investigates but finds nothing. Shaken, the director confesses that they are shooting a remake of an unfinished German film entitled
47, itself based on a supposedly cursed Polish folktale. Production was abandoned after the two leads were found murdered "inside the story". After filming the first few romantic scenes between their respective characters Sue and Billy, Nikki starts having difficulty distinguishing between the film script and real life. As in the script, Nikki starts a romantic affair with Devon. While they make love, she compares it to the script. Nikki walks into an alley and enters a door named "Axxon N." It leads to the
On High in Blue Tomorrows set, but also takes her back in time. Nikki realizes that she was the disturbance Devon investigated during the first rehearsal. She runs away and enters a prop, which turns into an actual house. Inside the house, Nikki sees her husband going to bed. She hides from him in a closet, which transports her to a living room inhabited by a troupe of prostitutes.
Stream of consciousness At this point, the narrative disintegrates into various plotlines and scenes, with the chronological order and the distinction between characters unclear or left to associations constructed by the audience. • Nikki meets the prostitutes as they solicit customers on
Hollywood Boulevard, and declares, "I'm a whore"; • A woman tells a policeman that she had been hypnotized to kill someone, and reveals that she has been stabbed in the stomach with a screwdriver; • In 1930s
Łódź, Poland, prostitutes interact with pimps; • Nikki is stuck in a physically abusive marriage with her husband "Smithy" (played by the same actor as Piotrek). They live in a working-class home possibly located in Southern California's
Inland Empire, which Polish men periodically visit; • In the film, Sue confronts Billy in front of his family, professing her love. Doris, Billy's wife (played by the same actress as the woman with the screwdriver) repeatedly slaps her; • In a room above a nightclub, Nikki/Sue tells a bespectacled man that she was
sexually abused in her childhood and that her husband joined a traveling circus from Poland as a gamekeeper. She also speaks of the Phantom, a hypnotist who worked at the circus and then disappeared; • The woman with the screwdriver remembers that the Phantom hypnotized her to kill Sue. • Recalling the first meeting with the old woman, a 2nd visitor (played by
Mary Steenburgen) tells Nikki/Sue that their family owes a debt to a neighbor called Crimp. Nikki/Sue has an unsettling encounter with him (played by same actor for the Phantom). Feeling stalked by the Phantom, Nikki/Sue arms herself with a screwdriver. She sees both herself and Doris on Hollywood Boulevard, and meets with the policeman above the nightclub. When she leaves, Doris stabs her with her own screwdriver. Nikki/Sue collapses at a bus stop next to three homeless people. A homeless woman tells all kinds of strange stories about her friend Niko and her pet monkey. Another holds a lighter in front of Sue's face until she dies. A crane shot reveals that Nikki is shooting her final scene of the film.
Climax In a daze, Nikki wanders off set and into a nearby movie theater, where she sees not only
On High in Blue Tomorrows but events occurring in real-time. She follows the bespectacled man upstairs and enters an apartment marked "Axxon N". Confronted by the Phantom, Nikki shoots him. The Phantom transforms into a grotesque figure with a face resembling Nikki's before dying. Nikki flees into Room 47, which houses the rabbits on television – though she fails to see them – and then meets the Lost Girl. The two women kiss and embrace, and Nikki fades away. The Lost Girl escapes from the hotel and into Smithy's house, where she happily embraces her husband and son. Nikki is back at her mansion. The film ends with a celebration involving the troupe of prostitutes, a one-legged woman mentioned earlier, Niko and her pet monkey, and others. The women dance to
Nina Simone's "
Sinnerman", while a lumberjack saws a log. ==Cast==