In the near future, the United States has set aside designated areas for each group of ethnic minorities. After growing up in one of the cultural conservation units, three dancers consider leading a life outside their home.

Following a messy breakup, an MIT graduate and a PhD student at Indiana University separately talk about the problems in their former relationship in two spliced-together conversations, exploring conflicts surrounding language, intimacy, commitment, and intellectualism.

In intense discussion a group leader ponders aloud, asking why hermits hide and what defines outcasts, among other cerebral queries. A group of friends discusses the oddities they have seen and perceived in their lives leather-clad hermits and criminal astronauts among them. They debate the purpose of hermitage, the classification of outcasts, and the purpose of their own reflections.

A woman, living with her husband, is overcome with a strange, inexplicable ailment to her body.

A maid, silently and in thought alone, contemplates her own position in a house full of opulent, decadent lives.

The ex-wife of a famous male writer considers a story he wrote about a neighbor they once had.

A mother, her two children, and their stepfather come over to a friend’s for a dinner on Labor Day.

A daughter, on the verge of becoming a mother, learns a great deal in spending time with her own mother.