 Barton Fink is a troubled New York playwright obsessed with bringing his new idea of "Theater of the Common Man" to the producers he loves to hate. After his first budding success his agent convinces him to travel to Los Angeles to write for Capital Pictures. When he arrives he checks into the dark Hotel Earle and meets with Capital Pictures President Jack Lipnick, who tells him of the movie he s writing: a B-Movie wrestling picture for Wallace Beery. Fink travels back to his hotel room to begin, but when he arrives he types one sentence and then falls into the horror of writer s block. He tries getting help from his neighbor, "Common Man" Charlie Meadows; famed writer Mayhew; Mayhew s girlfriend Audrey and producer Ben Geisler. But as Fink drifts further away from his script strange things start happening, and eventually two detectives show up at his door...