Tommy Wilhelm (Robin Williams) is a salesman. An honest, hard-working guy who has lost his job, his girlfriend, and left part of his sanity behind as he heads to New York to pick up the pieces of his life. He's always been able to sell, but caught in a downward spiral, he must, in addition, face the father who never really understood him, while trying to balance his newly precarious existence.

The Los Angeles Herald Examiner calls Saul Bellow "the most honored living American writer," and yet this stands as the only of his works adapted to film. "Seize the Day" as well as Mr. Williams and the rest of the cast (which features Glenne Headly "Dick Tracy," Jerry Stiller, and Tony Roberts "Annie Hall, Manhattan") received critical praise for this adaptation.