Woody Allen on life: "I do feel that it's a grim painful nightmarish, meaningless experience"

Woody Allen at Cannes Film Festival Press conference for "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger"

Alfie and Helena divorce. Helena begins seeing a fortune teller, Cristal, for spiritual advice. Their daughter Sally has a troubled marriage with author Roy, who once wrote a successful book and is now anxiously waiting for a response from his publisher about the manuscript of his newest one. Helena helps pay their rent.

Alfie marries a prostitute, Charmaine. Roy falls for Dia, a musicologist he sees through a window near his and Sally's flat, who is engaged to another man. Sally considers having an affair with Greg, her new boss at an art gallery. Greg confesses he is having trouble at home and eventually it turns out he is having an affair with Iris, Sally's protégée. Helena begins a friendship with Jonathan, the proprietor of an occult bookshop, which develops into romance.

Roy's book is rejected. He hears that Henry, a friend who is also a writer, has died in an accident. Henry had just finished a brilliant manuscript he had shown only to Roy, and Roy decides to steal it and claim it as his work. It is well received. After a string of lunch dates with Dia, he convinces her to break off her engagement (much to the devastation of her fiancé and their families) and moves in with her.

Alfie gets into a fight with Charmaine over her high expenses. He asks Helena to make a new start with him, but she refuses. Charmaine has sex with another man and gets pregnant. Alfie wants a DNA test to discover whether he is the father, but Charmaine argues that his paternity is irrelevant.

Sally quits her job and asks Helena for a loan she promised, for setting up her own art gallery, but Helena refuses because according to Cristal it is astrologically a bad time. Sally is furious. Roy is informed that there was a mix-up of the people killed in the accident and is shocked to hear that Henry is actually in a coma and recovering.

In the end, all are dissatisfied with their choices, except for Helena. She has acquired from Cristal a belief in reincarnation and sees her life now as only one episode in her series of lives. Jonathan shares her beliefs, and they receive his deceased wife's blessing for the new relationship via a séance.