After experiencing what should have been the most idyllic childhood, four siblings must learn how to assimilate back into the real world.

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.

When a family reunion brings together siblings, they realize they are now more like strangers. At the end of the day, a shocking incident tests their bonds.

An investigator stays in a family home in order to become acquainted with the family and all their intricacies while he investigates the case of family's adult son, who has threatens to kill the president of the United States to spare the lives of those involved in Vietnam.

On the day of her mother's funeral, a young woman reminisces about the summers during her childhood spent with her family and friends at their lakeside cabin. As she considers her parents' nontraditional relationship, she also wonders about her own love life.

During WWII, years after his parent's divorce, a college student and his brother visit their father and his new wife. However, the visit leaves him disappointed at what his father's life has become.

An older mother frets over her third, most troublesome and combative daughter, who may be having an affair.

Shorty after WWII, a young girl and her mother are forced to move into her grandmother's mysterious and bleak house after her beloved father dies from a heart attack.

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.

A blissfully naïve young couple hopes to avoid the fate of the husband's unhappy parents, but as his jealous mother, children, and resentments come between them, the young couple falls into the same pitfalls.