A research psychologist visits a peculiar asylum patient who recounts his life story. The patient warns the researcher about how obsession with the pursuit of knowledge can make one lose sight of their humanity until it is unsalvageable.

A man recalls his intimate friendship with his former English professor, who resolved to fuel his unsatisfied desire for playwriting during the time they were apart. In their reunion decades later, instead of the brilliant play he promised, the professor shows his former student a disturbing product of his mental instability.

After struggling to appeal to their state governor, a dysfunctional family anxiously awaits the public execution of a relative. As they wait at home new of the execution, tensions and strife erupt in a dispute over the relative's innocence.

Two men putting on a production for their New York theater company seek out a legendary, elderly actor, but upon finding him, they meet a man as dilapidated as the theater he once worked for.

When a dying Englishman forcefully relocates his family to France for his final resting place, their family falls into disruption during the long years of his unexpected remission.

A middle-aged man grieving the recent death of his father visits the families of his ex-wife and his current lover. As he does, he is deeply grieved by the passage of time and how his life has changed so much in a matter of years.

A cancer patient undergoes her treatment and struggles to distract herself from the pain by remembering conversations with her ex-husband.

A rambunctious teenager with an inquisitive mind causes much grief for all his New England family and neighbors when he visits them in the summer of 1914, on the eve of World War I.

A professor finds himself attracted to one of his students, allowing her to skip the final exams - but her resultant grade causes her to lash out at him and reveal harsh truths about his own life that he finds difficult to accept.

A sanitarium patient helps his neighbor grapple with guilt after a romantic tryst in Paris.