During a bitter 1964 Massachusetts winter, young secretary Eileen becomes enchanted by Rebecca Saint John, the glamorous new counselor at the prison where she works. Their budding friendship takes a twisted turn when Rebecca reveals a dark secret — throwing Eileen onto a sinister path.
While in his teens, Donny fathered a son, Todd, and raised him as a single parent up until Todd's 18th birthday. Now, after not seeing each other for years, Todd's world comes crashing down when Donny resurfaces just before Todd's wedding.
A single mother living in inner city Chicago, Brenda has been struggling for years to make ends meet and keep her three kids off the street. When she's laid off with no warning, she starts losing hope for the first time - until a letter arrives announcing the death of a father she's never met. Desperate for any kind of help, Brenda takes her family to Georgia for the funeral, but nothing could have prepared her for the Browns, her father's fun-loving, crass Southern clan. In a small-town world full of long afternoons and country fairs, Brenda struggles to get to know the family she never knew existed... and finds a brand new romance that just might change her life.
Abandoned by his father, a young boy is left in the hands of an unqualified childcare provider.
Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity.
12-year-old Mully has lost his mother and discovers his debt-ridden father stealing the charity money they've raised in her name. Grabbing the cash, Mully steals a taxi and is shocked to find a woman, Joy, in the back seat with a baby. A straight-talking solicitor who didn't expect to get pregnant, Joy is struggling with motherhood and planning to give her baby to a friend who will raise the child as her own. She joins Mully on a wild journey across Ireland, stealing cars, hitch-hiking, catching ferries and breaking police barricades.
When Tess Kelley realizes her daughter Jenny Kelley still isn't over her divorce from musician Rick Meadows, the irresponsible, ever-absent father of her little boy Jesse, and thus fails to make progress with friend and promising potential fiance Miles Healey, she places an ad on her daughter's behalf on a lonely hearts internet website. She then starts an anonymous relationship through the dating service with charming British-born literature professor Peter Campbell, who lives in America. Then Peter comes to meet Jenny in person, but who will end up with whom or stay alone?
41-year-old Shizuo Daikoku (Shinichi Tsutsumi) suddenly quits his job at a company to become a mangaka. His family and friends become involved in his new pursuit...
It's Christmas eve. An inebriated dad brings home to his adolescent son a gift he hopes will mend their faltering relationship, a Fookah, a devilish and disgusting creature that in turns wrecks havoc on their lives.