In Los Angeles, California, actress Suzanne Vale botches her lines while filming a scene in a movie. The director, Lowell Kolchek, suspects Suzanne of snorting cocaine between takes and warns her not to ruin his film. After a night of partying, Jack Falkner wakes up next to Suzanne and finds her unconscious. He drops her off at the emergency room, refuses to give his name, and speeds away. Dr. Frankenthal pumps Suzanne’s stomach, and she wakes up hours later at a rehabilitation center, where she has been sent by her mother, actress Doris Mann. Suzanne is told that she almost died from an overdose, but she vehemently denies being suicidal. Later, Doris Mann shows up late for a friends and family meeting at the rehabilitation center and attracts the attention of a homosexual patient named Bart, who rushes over to introduce himself. Suzanne drags her mother away, as Doris comments on her adoring homosexual fan base. In Suzanne’s room, Doris launches into a conversation about work. She asks if Suzanne has spoken to her business manager, Marty Wiener, then disparages the low-budget project Marty has lined up for her. Suzanne begins to speak, but Doris’s mood shifts and she starts to cry. She says she has always worried that Suzanne would be taken away from her. Agitated by her mother’s histrionics, Suzanne complains that talking to Doris is like talking to her drama coach. On her way out, Doris makes a flippant remark about the blandness of Suzanne’s room and promises to have some provisions sent over. Dr. Frankenthal sends flowers to Suzanne at the rehabilitation center, and she jokes to her roommate, Aretha, about the prospect of going on a date with the man who pumped her stomach. When she completes the rehabilitation program, Suzanne goes with her mother to meet Marty Wiener, who says the producers of Suzanne’s next film will only insure her if she agrees to live with one of her parents during production. Doris, who is divorced from Suzanne’s father, remarks that he is even worse than Suzanne. Eager to get back to work, Suzanne grudgingly agrees to move in with Doris. She shows up for her first day of work on the new movie and meets producer Joe Pierce, who asks for a urine sample by the end of the day. Despite taking offense at the request, she agrees to the drug test. Suzanne dresses for her role as a policewoman and shows up on set, where she is shocked to discover there will be no rehearsals. Flustered, she takes her place against a prop cactus and introduces herself to her co-star, Robert Munch, just before the cameras roll. At the end of the day, Doris chauffeurs Suzanne home to an extravagant surprise party. There, Suzanne nervously snacks on chips and chats with her boisterous grandmother in the backyard, before being called inside to cut the cake. Partygoers urge Suzanne to sing a song. She relents and sings “You Don’t Know Me.” Doris embraces her when the song is over, then feigns surprise when the crowd begs her for a song. Doris instructs the piano player to play “I’m Still Here,” and delivers a choreographed performance that elicits wild applause from everyone, including her daughter. The next day at work, Suzanne is hounded by the director, Simon Asquith, associate producer Neil Bleene, and executive producer George Lazan about her lackluster performance the day before. Outside the costume trailer, she overhears Simon Asquith and the costume designer commiserating over Suzanne’s fat thighs and sagging breasts, and Simon wishes aloud that Suzanne would cope with sobriety by smoking cigarettes instead of snacking. At the end of the day, Suzanne stares longingly at a bottle of prescription pills in someone else’s bag. On the way to her car, she runs into Jack Falkner, the producer who dropped her off at the emergency room, but she cannot remember how she knows him. Jack reminds her they spent the night together and apologizes for not leaving his information at the hospital. She asks if they slept together, but he assures her no. When she asks if they kissed, Jack kisses her to pique her memory. Later, Jack arrives at Doris’s house to pick up Suzanne for a date. Doris banters with him as her taciturn husband, Sid Roth, hurries past them on his way to watch television. Suzanne finds Doris flirting with Jack and pulls her into another room to ask why Doris must always upstage her. At his Malibu ranch, Suzanne tells Jack she does not get involved in casual affairs. However, Jack claims he is falling in love with her and has been bewitched since he first saw her onscreen. Early the next morning, Suzanne returns home to find Doris waiting up with a bottle of wine. Doris accuses her daughter of behaving irresponsibly as she fills up her own wine glass. Doris recalls having a nervous breakdown years ago, and blames their recent estrangement on Suzanne’s inability to move past her rocky adolescence. At work, Suzanne discovers one of her co-stars, Evelyn Ames, has been sleeping with Jack Falkner. In her policewoman costume, Suzanne goes to Jack’s ranch, reproaches him for lying, and shoots him with blanks from her prop handgun as she drives away. Back home, she steals pills from Doris’s medicine cabinet. Doris finds Suzanne eating spaghetti out of the refrigerator and informs her that Marty Wiener has disappeared with all of his clients’ money. Doris pours vodka into her breakfast shake and urges her daughter to record an album to increase her popularity. Suzanne begs Doris to stop telling her how to live her life, and recalls the many times Doris drunkenly embarrassed her as a teenager. Doris blames the incidents on her divorce and subsequent nervous breakdown, and claims her drinking is now under control. She suggests Suzanne is jealous because she cannot control her own drug habit, to which Suzanne responds that Doris was responsible for introducing her to sleeping pills at age nine. Outside, Suzanne swallows the pills she stole. However, minutes later, she pulls over on the side of the road and forces herself to vomit. She shows up for a post-synch recording session with Lowell Kolchek, to fix the lines she flubbed while high on cocaine. Lowell notices Suzanne crying and comforts her. He congratulates her on her sobriety and promises to cast her in his next movie, which begins filming in two months. On the way home, Suzanne sees Doris’s car, crashed into a tree. A police officer relays that Doris was driving drunk and taken to the emergency room with a head injury. At the hospital, Suzanne finds her grandmother chastising Doris and pushes the old woman out of the room. She helps Doris apply her makeup so she can face the paparazzi in the hospital waiting room. Doris admits to being jealous of Suzanne, because it is “her turn” to be a star. She encourages her daughter to enjoy her youth, lamenting that she never enjoyed her own. In the hall, Dr. Frankenthal reintroduces himself to Suzanne, who does not remember him pumping her stomach. He asks her on a date, and she agrees but admits she is not quite ready. He promises to wait. Soon after, on the set of Lowell Kolchek’s latest film, Doris proudly watches from backstage as Suzanne performs a country song. After Lowell calls cut, Suzanne continues to sing along with the band and gleefully dances onstage.