Leonard prefers to watch the world around him-he doesn't want to "engage" himself, as his controlling mother would put it. His observations lead him to discover that we all have our own personal obsessions: he watches his mother struggle for control over her home, her family, her garden; he watches his father grasp at the last vestiges of his youth (with some help from the purchase of a swanky red Corvette). But an unlikely friendship between Leonard and Vivian, the old lady next door with the hot tub, teaches Leonard that sometimes his obsession with watching the world go by is keeping him from truly experiencing his own life to its fullest.