Whitman appears charming and charismatic in which he and Martha begin dating. Martha introduces Whitman to her family and he impresses all of them. But by the time she meets his strange and eccentric mother (Plowright), Martha has become convinced he is not "Mr. Right" at all. After Martha tells Whitman that it is OK to "be himself" around her, he suddenly breaks character and shoplifts a six-pack of beer from a local store and enjoys crushing the empty beer cans on his forehead. It is here that Whitman is revealed to be a crafty, devious, narcissistic sociopath who hides behind a charming nice-guy persona that fools literally everyone he comes into contact with. To make matters worse, Whitman's ex-girlfriend, Inga (Joan Cusack) (who is nearly as crazy and deranged as Whitman), and her accomplice, Bob (Brad William Henke), begin harassing Martha who decides to break up with Whitman. Inga refuses to believe that Martha has dumped Whitman. Whitman also refuses to believe he has been dumped and he begins stalking Martha and trying to woo her back in increasingly ridiculous ways. Martha soon becomes frustrated and desperate after the manipulative Whitman tells her whole smitten and oblivious family that they are engaged to be married. He even buys off her private investigator (Dean Stockwell) that she hires to make a background check on him. All of Martha's attempts to expose Whitman as the dangerous sociopath that he is to her friends and family is met with disbelief and skepticism from everyone due to his skill of lying and manipulation. Whitman goes as far as to make Martha lose her job, and then hits her with his pickup truck, drugs her and abducts her to Mexico to marry her there by hiring two young Mexican children to hold her captive as they travel on the road to their destination.