It was a time when artists and writers often gathered together in an area of the city known as Greenwich Village, and a time when Joseph Mitchell (Stanley Tucci) was publishing some of his best work. One day, the soft-spoken writer encounters Joe Gould (Ian Holm). Yankee-born and Harvard-educated, the disheveled Gould is a scholar of the NYC transcription of hundreds of conversations, remarks, and essays about what he has seen and heard.

"Every day," writes Mitchell in The New Yorker, "even when he has a bad hangover or even when he is weak and listless from hunger, Joe Gould writes in school composition books." Holding no job, Gould depends on friends and well-wishers, welcoming contributions to "theJoe Gould Fund."

After Mitchell's story appears in The New Yorker, Gould becomes a minor celebrity. As the dynamics between the two men shift, their relationship will consume Mitchell for years to come - as he becomes the keeper of Joe Gould's secret.

Directed by Stanley Tucci. Casts include Ian Holm, Stanley Tucci, Patricia Clarkson, Hope Davis and Susan Sarandon.