Record store clerk Nick Brady begins to experience strange visions from an entity he calls VALIS that cause him to uproot his family and move to Los Angeles where he becomes a successful music company executive. Nick finds himself drawn into a dangerous political-mystical conspiracy of cosmic proportions.

Billy is a teenage outcast in search of his life's true meaning. Day by day, he slaves away at the local burger joint, only to return home to a paraplegic father, whose own dreams of happiness have faded away in an alcoholic haze. Nonetheless, Billy tries to bond with his delusional father, but cannot break through the many layers of pain and regret that surround him. Frustrated, Billy longs to escape the dead-end existence that has engulfed his father, and now appears to be closing in on him as well.