An artist fails a test and is required to direct traffic in New York City's Holland Tunnel. He winds up falling in love with a beautiful woman, who takes him to the moon on a Lunar Cruiser.

A low-class antisocial family ends up in a rich upper-class neighborhood and causes all sorts of trouble.

The story of a famous fashion model who, unable to cope with the fantasies and pressures her beauty induces in others, disappears. The film is a profile of her emotional life and contrasts the fantasies she creates in other people's minds with the strains of her real emotional life as revealed in her diaries.

MODEL shows male and female models at work on TV commercials, fashion shows, magazine covers, and advertising for a variety of products, including designer collections, fur coats, sports clothes and automobiles. The models are seen at work with photographers whose techniques illustrate different styles of fashion and product photography. The business aspect of running an agency is also shown: interviewing prospective models, career counseling, arranging portfolios, talking with clients, and planning trips. The film presents a view of the intersections of fashion, business, advertising, photography, television and fantasy.