Matthew Broderick stars as Sam, a contented hometown boy and an astronomer in love with the stars, who gets dumped by his girlfriend, Linda. Sam, after receiving a "dear John" letter read to him in person by Linda's dad, decides to go to New York to find her and win her back. Unfortunately he finds her living with Anton, a big, sexy Frenchman who also recently dumped his old girlfriend, Maggie, played by Meg Ryan, to be with Linda.

Maggie's tough, and she teams up with Sam to spy on and scheme against Anton and Linda. As their efforts to sabotage the lovers begin to pay off, their feelings for each other begin to grow.

From the visually impaired point of view, this movie only had four main characters, with each having distinct voices. The music was great, with vibrant, uplifting sound throughout the theater. The last half of the movie had dialogue that was pretty consistent and relatively easy to follow.

The difficulties, however, were many. There were lots of abrupt scene changes, with no warning whatsoever. The music was excellent, but often interfered with my ability to comprehend what was going on. There were many scenes with just music and no dialogue. These were obviously difficult, needing quick, succinct descriptions from my sighted assistant.