Monkey Grip is a film about the complication of love, desire and freedom. It is about living with men and living without men. It is the story of Nora - in her early thirties - recently divorced and caring for her thirteen year-old daughter - a woman trying to live free of the compromises of conventional domesticity and dependence upon men, who, in spite of this, is drawn into a dangerously obsessive relationship with an attractive actor addicted to heroin. The film is set in the inner Melbourne suburbs of Carlton & Fitzroy, within a network of talented, reckless rock 'n' roll musicians, actors and writers - people refusing to live by the rules of consumerist culture and safe, conventional morality, exploring the possibilities and suffering the traumas of a new sexual openness. The story takes place from one summer to the next. It explores the changes Nora undergoes in attempting to gain control over her life.