Jackson (Justin Herwick) is a mess. It's not the blue hair and the wildly mismatched clothes that pass for cutting-edge among his clique of artsy down-and-outers in Los Angeles; it's his whole attitude about life. "I think I'm in love with 20 people a day," he confesses.

Rampant hormones and confused romanticism are clouding his judgment. Can't he tell that his best friend Sam (Shane Powers), a failed artist-turned-record store owner, is crazy in love with him? And what's up with hunky cousin Jed from the Midwest (B. Wyatt), who unexpectedly appears naked in Jackson's shower and proceeds to carry on with Jackson's lesbian friend Alyssa (Pamela Gidley) — is Jed straight or bi or what, and would it be incest if Jackson did it with him?

Meanwhile, Jackson's current obsession, pretty-boy Billy (Jonah Blechman), turns out to have some unexpected and very heavy baggage. At least Jackson's career as a poet (his words are supplied by renegade novelist Dennis Cooper) is on the upswing, especially when burned-out, big-name rock star Sonny Spike (Willie Garson) turns to him for lyrics. But Spike has a very nasty secret. Filled with youthful angst and wry humor (Warning: this movie contains gratuitous Madonna-bashing), Luster captures the mood of alternative L.A. "post-Kurt and pre-Millennium" with a storyline that sprawls and loops back on itself like the spaghetti bowl of the L.A. freeways.