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

Stinging from his recently cut-off engagement, a young man retreats to a small town in the mountains of Virginia to work as city editor of the local newspaper. Alternately entranced and disgusted with his hermit-like nocturnal life, he finds peace and pleasure listening to the St. Anthony Chorale.

As a woman grows older, she falls into a deep sadness while the men around her constantly tell her to cheer up.

A man's lonely life focused on the pursuit of reason and music leaves him questioning what more there may be in the lives of other people and of religion.

A man who firmly believes he does not love the woman he felt obligated to marry begins to realize the gravity of losing her after she ventures into the woods one stormy evening.

A mother struggles to provide her daughter with comfort in an unstable home as her husband constantly searches for new employment.

Amongst problems with her ungrateful children and ex-husband, a middle-aged mother deals with a burgeoning mid-life crisis — until she realizes that she has become miraculously pregnant.

A progressive and bitter father going through a mid-life crisis goes on holiday to a water park with his wife and excitable son. He casually confronts racist and irritable guests while trying to figure out how to be a good dad.

In a series of commentaries on the human condition — life, truth, happiness, death — a spinster sister takes in her dead sister’s children; a man is entranced by the endless waves which roll and crash in the ocean; a carpenter wrestles with the burden of being everyone’s confidante; a dying railroad crossing watchman shares a simple but complex wisdom.

When an old woman sees her son straining to leave to see the world, she remembers her husband doing the same many years earlier. In a fierce battle pitting love against discovery and adventure, she does her utmost to set him free.