Synopsis for
Roxanne (1987) More at IMDbPro »

In the film, Steve Martin plays C.D. Bales, the fire chief in a small American town in the Pacific Northwest. C.D. is witty, acrobatic and skilled at many things, but he has a very large nose about which he is violently sensitive. He loves Roxanne Kowalski (Hannah), a beautiful astronomer, but she is infatuated with Chris (Rick Rossovich), a handsome but dim fireman. As in the play, Bales is touchy about his perceived ugliness (which he cannot have surgically altered because of a dangerous allergy to anesthetics) and speaks to the object of adoration the only way he can: he writes expressions of love in letter form and allows Chris to present them to Roxanne as if they were his own.

Roxanne receives a letter from Chris telling her that he has both left town and left her for another woman. C.D.'s friend and god-sister Dixie reveals that the letters Roxanne thought were written by Chris were actually written for her by C.D. When C.D. arrives at her home in response to a call from her, she confronts him about the letters. C.D. and Roxanne then end up in an argument, she claiming that he was deceiving her and leading her on, while C.D. says that she wanted the perfect man who was both emotionally and physically beautiful.

In the end, C.D. and Roxanne forgive one another and Roxanne confesses her love for C.D. and his characteristic nose. She says that flat-nosed people are too boring and bland, and that his nose gives him character.

Other stories in the movie include C.D. dealing with the incompetence of his volunteer firemen (whom Chris was brought in to help train), the appearance of a new comet which Roxanne came to observe, and a cafe owner (Shelley Duvall) who is a friend to both C.D. and Roxanne.