Film editor Robert Cole is breaking up with his girlfriend, Mary--again. Even Mary doesn't really believe he's serious. Sure enough, after 24 hours of trying to start his life over by launching a new exercise program and setting up a date with a woman he once met but can't seem to remember, he becomes desperate to be back with his former love. Mary takes him back, and the codependent couple finds themselves right back in their old dysfunctional patterns of jealousy and insecurity--but at least the sex is great. Albert Brooks again shows his ability to analyze and deconstruct the most everyday elements of life with humor and empathy in this wry, comic view of relationships. George Kennedy has a hilarious cameo as himself in the film-within-the-film that Brooks's character is editing, and director James L. Brooks appears as the neurotic director of the same film.