Q:Build a movie plot around this: Who does Lilly meet and instantly dislike? Roy's girlfriend, Myra.
A:
The film opens with a voiceover (done by producer Martin Scorsese) where it's explained that bettors at racetracks will deliberately bet high on certain horses to lower the odds and earn more money.Lily Dillon (Angelica Houston) works for a Baltimore gangster, Bobo Justus, who has her place such bets on horse races. After collecting the earnings, Lily opens a hidden compartment in the trunk of her car and skims several thousand dollars from the payoffs and hides it among the other money she's stolen from Bobo. One of Bobo's associates calls her in New Mexico and tells her to go to the downs in La Jolla. Lily agrees and says she'll stop by Los Angeles to see her son.In L.A., Roy Dillon (John Cusak), Lily's 25-year-old estranged son, works several small-time cons. One of his tricks is showing a bartender a $20 bill then slyly switching it for a ten, fooling the bartender in to giving him change for a $20. One day, Roy is caught by one of his marks who seizes his arm and jabs him hard in the chest with the end of a club. Roy manages to walk out of the bar and make it home. While he lays in pain in his bed, he dreams of his first meeting with the man, Mintz, who taught him how to con people. Mintz' advice to Roy, and one of his steadfast rules, was to never take a partner in a con - it can only end in ruin.That night Roy's girlfriend, Myra Langtry (Annette Benning), a grifter herself, stops by and they have sex. The next day, Lily shows up at Roy's place and the two have a tense conversation where Roy points out that Lily hasn't contacted him in eight years. The conversation becomes more intense, with Roy feeling great resentment over their falling out. Lily notices that Roy is incredibly ill and feverish and has him taken to a hospital where he's treated for internal bleeding to the injury to his abdomen and lives.Both Lily and Myra visit Roy in the hospital and there is instant animosity between the two. Lily sees Myra as a bad influence and Myra believes there may be an incestuous relationship between mother...