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“Anyone can be a father. But not every father deserves a standing ovation.”

In New York, weeks before opening night, Broadway playwright Ivan Travalian (Al Pacino) is finishing a new play while five children run through his apartment, four of them his wife's from earlier marriages. Then his wife Alica (Dyan Cannon) announces she is leaving, and Arthur Hiller keeps the camera in the crowded rooms. Ivan has to hold the production and the household together, and he has no time to lose either.