As she walks alongside the Hudson River with her friend, a woman excitedly explains her intricate vision of what would give her happiness.

A bitter divorcee and distant father having an affair with a younger, married woman gets a call that his son has gotten into trouble at boarding school. He travels to the school, where the headmaster says his son, who beat up another student, must transfer. In a series of events that makes him increasingly bitter, he ends up making his son's girlfriend cry in a restaurant.

A pessimistic father's belief that the world is actively against him and his family displaces his frustration on his wife and son. His opinion may prove to be correct after his child succumbs to a sudden illness.

An accomplished but ineffectual columnist searches for fulfillment, until a death in the family causes him to question the family he took for granted.

Having sacrificed his dream job to financially support his marriage, a man realizes there is sexual tension between his wife and his friend. Ultimately, he makes tough decisions about both his friendship and his marriage.

A Jewish communist quit working at an editorial bureau where his co-workers are bothered by his leftist ideology because of his boss' praises of him.

After a lifetime of getting pummeled by his own family and wife, a man gets the last laugh.

An insufferable white man offers advice to a well-read, unemployed Black man holding a sandwich-board sign on a street corner on race relations, physical appearance, and how to improve his handwriting and thereby advance himself in society.

A woman dealing with conflicting emotions resorts to deliberately putting herself in danger to learn to value the life she's been given - but these unorthodox methods leave her more desperate than ever.

Two narcissistic adult daughters take exception to their wealthy parents' houseguests, a priest mourning his dead lover, and the strange and frumpy American woman Arleen. But Arleen possesses insight into the family that the girls' own parents lack.