Mr. Jealousy

Mr. Jealousy is a 1997 romantic comedy film written and directed by Noah Baumbach and starring Eric Stoltz and Annabella Sciorra.

Plot

Aspiring writer Lester Grimm (Stoltz) starts going out with Ramona Ray (Sciorra) after being introduced by Lester's friend Vince (Carlos Jacott) and Vince's fiancee Lucretia (Marianne Jean-Baptiste). They immediately hit it off, but Ramona mentions on their first date that one of her ex-boyfriends is famous writer Dashiell Frank (Chris Eigeman). Lester becomes slightly jealous.

One day Lester is walking down the street and he spots Dashiell and follows him. He then notices how Dashiell goes to group therapy. He then joins the group, pretending that he is actually his friend, Vince. After several sessions with the group and Dr. Poke (Peter Bogdanovich), Dashiell is complaining about how he has never been faithful when Lester bursts out with some criticism that shocks everyone.

After a couple more sessions, Lester decides to leave the therapy group, which Vince strongly advises against, as he had asked Lester to talk about him to get some personal advice. Vince then convinces Lester to stay for two more sessions, where Lester continues to 'fight' Dashiell. During one particular session, Dashiell is talking about a character in one of his books, and says that it was based on a true person. We are then led to believe that he is talking about Ramona.