Against a winter setting of bright, frigid, Canadian whiteness, the film begins with a desperate Persian immigrant hanging himself from a tree. Failing, even at dying, he (Malek) is forced to spend some time in a hospital with similarly suicidal "crazies", and later obliged to see an uptight unfeeling therapist. She represents the very things he despises about the society he is up against. But she has met her nemesis in Malek, a man that she eventually finds is beyond her understanding. Despite his misty brilliance, persuasive critical eye, and cutting truthfulness, Malek's continues to loiter in an unsteady psychological space. And yet he possesses a vast reservoir of strengths. He is a shameless rogue, stealing with alarming ease, seducing women he doesn't love. On top of this, he believes he is a cockroach, often quite literally. He manages to get a menial and humiliating job at a restaurant and hopes that it may get him closer to a young woman named Shohreh: a woman who despite his sub-human status, he hopes to have somehow. And in the end he kills for her even though she never loved him. The film will walk a thin line, between harsh, shocking realities, fantasy and an inventive lunacy that make up Malek's world.

A script written by Arto Paragamian