Once a powerful Hollywood director best known for Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein, James Whale (Ian McKellen) is long since retired and in increasingly poor health. His stalwart housekeeper, Hanna (Lynn Redgrave), quietly disapproves of Whale's faceless, nameless parade of young gay lovers, but when the director takes an interest in new gardener Clayton Boone, a former Marine and Korean War veteran, it seems to be for something more than his usual casual conquest.