A gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. When the man dies, Chance is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television.
After a run-in with a limousine, he ends up a guest of a woman (Shirley MacLaine) and her husband Ben (Melvyn Douglas), an influential but sickly businessman. Now called Chauncey Gardner, Chance becomes friend and confidante to Ben, and an unlikely political insider.
An erudite satire which still feels as piercing today in its takedown of the American political landscape, Being There also acts as a quietly magical foray into finding meaning and spirituality amidst the chaos of the world, featuring Peter Sellers at the height of his dramatic powers and a goosebump-inducing denouement.