Rick is a pre-med student who becomes obsessed with a beautiful classmate named Julie. She spurns his every attempt to talk with her so in desperation, and on the advice of a fellow student, he buys her a green scarf. He has been warned about her overprotective father, an officer in the Marines, but decides to pursue Julie in spite of the obstacles. Rick is drawn into a world of duplicity, uncertainty and danger, where people are not whom they seem to be, and facts shift as easily as flipping a light switch.