The film is set in the 1980s with David, the 17-year-old gay son of a Russian Jewish family in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. He has a closer relationship with his widowed grandfather Josef, than he does with his parents; his dad frequently beats him and his mother is overbearing and constantly meddling in his life. She insists he go to a Jewish school, where he will not get beat up for being a Jew, instead of enrolling in public school, which David would rather go to. When his grandfather decides to downsize from his too big apartment to a smaller one in subsidized housing, he takes David along with him. After meeting the rabbi assigned to approve residency in the apartment block, Josef is approved after committing him and David to make up the quorum required for a Jewish prayer circle, also known as a minyan. There is also a closeted gay senior couple living there, Herschel and Itzik, whom the neighbors choose to view as friends, which David befriends. In one scene in the film, the building manager explains why he doesn't care that they live together: "Thieves, adulterers, homosexuals. I take them all, without them, we would never have our minyan". Now that David is living away from his parents, he can explore his sexuality more fully by cruising the parks and the local library, where young gay men hang out. One night he enters a gay bar for the first time where he meets Eric, who buys him drinks, and Bruno, the bartender. Bruno and David eventually have sex, while Bruno teaches David about the perils of AIDS that is just starting to spread through the gay community.