A day in the life of an ordinary family is complicated by secret thoughts and feelings as everyone occupies themselves with the task of watching the others.

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.

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.

A nosey man living in a suburb regularly interacts with several neighbors but keeps his distance from one woman, whom he witnesses abuse her children verbally and physically. When the situation escalates, however, he must decide whether or not to intervene.

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 man reflects on the loneliness of his childhood home, where his family would fervently clean the house every Saturday for guests on Sunday who would never show.

A city employs people to act strangely to order to make others feel normal.

When a woman finds her purse stolen, she retraces the steps of her eventful day only to realize that the encounters, and her life as a whole, are empty and purposeless.

An aging electrical engineer's intensifying sensation of detachment culminates in a series of debilitating headaches. As he works through fatigue, setbacks, and pain, he finally confronts the source of his desolation.

On a close-knit street, two women commit suicide a week apart from each other. When an ambulance arrives, the adults with a hushed-silence, and the kids joke about dead bodies to torment a local woman.