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The film centers on Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a bisexual glitter icon patterned after David Bowie and, to a lesser extent, Marc Bolan and Brian Eno. Ewan McGregor co-stars in the role of Curt Wild, a glam-rock performer who doesn't back down from sex, nudity or drugs on or off stage, and whom many consider to be loosely based on Iggy Pop, with a dash of Lou Reed, Mick Ronson and Alice Cooper. Also featured are Christian Bale as a young gay glam rock fan and reporter, Arthur Stuart, Toni Collette as Slade's wife, Mandy, and Eddie Izzard as his manager, Jerry Devine.

The tale strongly parallels Bowie and Pop's relationship in the 1970s and 1980s, with parallel stages in both stories including "folk singer takes illegal substances" and "open-minded glam rocker becomes bland straight guy." Brian Slade's gradually overwhelming on-stage persona of "Maxwell Demon" and his backing band, "Venus in Furs", likewise bear a resemblance to Bowie's similar persona and backing band, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The film is also strongly influenced by the ideas and life of Oscar Wilde (seen here as a progenitor of glam rock), with a dash of Jean Genet influence.

The narrative structure of the film is modeled on that of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, in that reporter Bale tries to solve a mystery about Slade, traveling around to interview Slade's lovers and colleagues, whose recollections are shown in 1950s, 1960s and 1970s flashback sequences.

The story follows a British journalist, Arthur Stewart (Christian Bale), who has to search his own past when writing an article about the mysterious disappearance of a former glam-rock star, Brian Slade, for an American periodical. The film turns Slade's paranoia of being murdered during a concert (a paranoia that Bowie incorporated into the Ziggy Stardust story in the climax of the Ziggy Stardust album) into a career-ending publicity stunt by Slade, after which he gradually disappears from the public view entirely. As Stewart locates and talks with people connected to Slade, trying to find out what happened, he revisits the glam-rock scene of the 70s in a series of vignettes, which recreate the stories of Slade, Wild, and others involved in their lives.

Although the character of Brian Slade is heavily based on David Bowie, Bowie himself disliked the script and vetoed the proposal that his songs appear in the film.

The finished soundtrack includes songs by glam rock and glam-influenced bands, past and present.

The English musicians who played under the name The Venus in Furs on the soundtrack were Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, David Gray, Suede's Bernard Butler, and Roxy Music's Andy Mackay. The American musicians who played as Curt Wild's Wylde Ratttz on the soundtrack were The Stooges' Ron Asheton, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley, Minutemen's Mike Watt, Gumball's Don Fleming, and Mark Arm of Mudhoney.

The soundtrack features new songs written for the film by Pulp, Shudder To Think and Grant Lee Buffalo, as well as many early glam rock compositions, both covers and original versions. The Venus in Furs covers several Roxy Music songs with Thom Yorke channeling Bryan Ferry on vocals, Placebo covers T.Rex's "20th Century Boy," Wylde Ratttz and Ewan McGregor cover The Stooges' "T.V. Eye", and Teenage Fanclub and Donna Matthews cover The New York Dolls' "Personality Crisis." Lou Reed, Brian Eno, T.Rex, and Steve Harley songs from the period are also included. The album is rounded out by a piece of Carter Burwell's film score.

All three members of the band Placebo also appeared in the film, with Brian Molko and Steve Hewitt playing members of the Flaming Creatures (Malcolm and Billy respectively) and Stefan Olsdal playing Polly Small's bassist.

Soundtrack by various artists Released: November 3, 1998 Genre: Glam Rock, Soundtrack Length: 1:12:09 Label: Fontana Records London Producer: Randall Poster, Todd Haynes, Michael Stipe