The film follows the lives of multiple characters, all of whom are connected via their patronage of a small Brooklyntobacconist store managed by Auggie. Brooklyn Cigar Co. was located on the corner of 16th Street and Prospect Park West. Auggie takes a photograph of the store from across the street at 8:30am every morning. A recently-widowed writer Paul Benjamin sees his wife in one of the pictures, and breaks down. Later, he is saved from being run down by a truck by a young black man named Rashid, whom he invites to stay in his apartment. Rashid accepts, saying he was recognised by robbers and his life is in danger. He tracks his father down to a small-town gas station, which he sketches. His father, not recognising him, befriends him, and Rashid gives his name as Paul Benjamin. Paul finds $5000 that Rashid has stashed in the apartment. Paul tracks Rashid down, and introduces himself to his father, who comments that Rashid and him share a name, and calls him out. Rashid admits that his real name is Thomas Jefferson Cole, which his father also has difficulty believing, as it is the name of his son. Rashid is hired to work at the tobacconist, but ruins a shipment of cigars when the sink overflows. He gives Auggie the $5000 to keep his job. Another thread has Auggie's old girlfriend re-visit, asking for money for Felicity, who she implies is his daughter. Auggie later gives her the same $5000. The many story lines never really connect, except through Auggie. At the end of the film Auggie tells Paul a tender story about spending Christmas with a blind grandmother who at first thinks, and then pretends, he is her grandson. The story is based on writer Paul Auster's piece "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story", published in The New York Times on Christmas day, 1990. During and after the closing credits, Auggie's story is enacted in a poignant black-and-white sequence to the soundtrack of Tom Waits's Innocent When You Dream.
The film was followed by Blue in the Face, a sequel of sorts that continues following a few of the characters and introduces several new ones.
Legacy
The character Augustus "Auggie" Wren is modelled after the real-life owner of Augie's Jazz Bar, which closed in 1998. When the establishment reopened in 1999, the new owners could not keep the former establishment's name. To honor its legacy, they named the new club after the 1995 film.
