Busy navigating his final year of high school, brainy aspiring teacher Tom is determined to land an elusive scholarship, but his hard work is constantly interrupted by his real obsession: pursuing the opposite sex. Before long, he develops a romance with former classmate Elaine, who persistently declines his sexual advances. This inspires Tom to consider other options, including his good-natured study buddy Kathy. But when they take their friendship to the next level, shocking complications threaten to derail Tom’s future, inspiring his friends to take drastic action.

Des works at a boring job, and his girlfriend Julie is pressuring him to get married by claiming to be pregnant, so that she will not have to work. Laurie is living a life of quiet desperation with her husband Colin, an aspiring writer who refuses to look for a job. Des meets Laurie while visiting a work-mate who is dying of leukemia. While they go for a drive, Laurie invites Des to a rent party at their house. After this Vancouver counter-culture party, Colin finds Des and Laurie in bed together.

In Montréal, Jean-Pierre is fired on the set of a TV commercial where he's an apprentice technician. He's penniless, behind on his rent, with a thin resume and no college units. He has a fiancée, Michelle, but his head is turned by a free-spirited model, from the U.S., who saw him being fired and comes to his flat to apologize. She's Elizabeth, a combination of feckless innocence and sexual freedom. Jean-Pierre borrows money from his outlaw friend, Dock, and buys clothes to impress Elizabeth. Soon he's sleeping with her, and he pulls a theft with Dock to get money to take her to Acapulco. Michelle tries to bring him back to her orbit. Is there a way out for Jean-Pierre?