"Maladies" follows three people struggling to coexist together in a little house in a beach town, separated and bonded by their mental illnesses from the rest of the world. Franco plays a former actor whose schizophrenia forces him to leave his craft and remain only a shell of his former self. Keener supports his the cross-dressing best friend whose struggle with her own gender identity precludes her from keeping the group together, and Goodson rounds out the trio as Franco's sister whose mental detachment exacerbates the tensions already prevalent in the house.