Dan is a poet who falls in love with two kinds of Candy: a woman of the same name, and heroin. As Dan goes from a smart-aleck to someone trying to find a vein to inject, Candy changes from an actress to a streetwalker and then a madwoman. Starting in Sydney, the two eventually end up in Melbourne to try and go clean, but they fail. This leads them to turn to finding money and heroin, while other possessions and attachments become unimportant.