Bobby is not a biopic, but an examination of the hopes, idealism, anger and confusion that gripped America in the late 1960s.

Using the assassination of Robert Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel on the 5th of June 1968 as a backdrop, the film examines a number of different characters in a style reminiscent of Robert Altmans Nashville. John Casey (Hopkins) is the retired doorman at the hotel, who plays chess with his friend Nelson (Harry Belafonte). Edward (Laurence Fishburne), an African-American head chef, presides over a kitchen staffed primarily by Mexican Americans, who are the victims of the racist restaurant manager, Timmons (Christian Slater). Paul Ebbers (Macy) is having an affair with a switchboard operator (Heather Graham) behind the back of his beautician wife (Stone). A young woman, Diane (Lindsay Lohan), prepares to marry her classmate, William (Wood), in order to save him from going to Vietnam, and two Kennedy campaigners take their first LSD trip, courtesy of a resident hippie drug dealer (Ashton Kutcher). A Czech reporter (Svetlana Metkina) tries repeatedly to get an interview with Robert Kennedy, and two married socialites and campaign donors (Helen Hunt and Martin Sheen) stay at the hotel.

Although the drama is sometimes uneven, the film manages to capture the feeling of the era.