Two young men are seriously affected by the Vietnam War. One of them has always been obsessed with birds - but now believes he really is a bird, and has been sent to a mental hospital. Can his friend help him pull through?

A slice-of-life story unfolds inside The Florentine, a bar in a Pennsylvania steel town whose brightest days are behind it, leaving behind many of life's disillusioned "losers." Its owner, Whitey, is deep in debt to the town's loan shark, Joe McCollough, and desperate for a path forward which won't cost him the bar. His sister, Molly, is days away from her long-awaited nuptials, and then her former fiancé, Teddy, shows up in town for the first time since leaving her at the altar years before. Ne'er-do-well Billy Belasco runs a con on Frankie to steal the money for the wedding caterer, while long-time regular Bobby becomes a patron-cum-inhabitant as he hides from his fast-crumbling marriage to Vikki. Every plot in this multi-layered story seems to be at its nadir just as a pair of unlikely heroes emerge out of the backdrop to turn everything around.

A kid plays the old novelty song "Purple People Eater" and the creature actually appears. The two then proceed to help an elderly couple who are being evicted by their greedy landlord.