When physics professor Larry Gopnik's well-organised life begins to unfold around him he takes refuge in a local motel and seeks advice from a series of rabbis, but none of them - it seems - has the wisdom to help him solve the problems of a socially inept brother who won't move out, his wife and her lover's demands for a divorce, or the student who's trying to bribe him for a pass at a time when he risks losing all hope of getting tenure.
