A young girl works to impress her highly critical parents and submits to a terrible fate as she struggles to meet their impossible standards.

A mother and her adult daughter act as the waitstaff in a beautiful home and mostly pass unnoticed by the inhabitants. However, when the daughter develops a fascination with an inattentive man who lives in the home, disappointment and devastation result when he moves away.

A young boy grows up avoiding his abusive mother and idolizing two men in his life: his father and a boy in his class. But when both of his heroes betray him, he turns to his mother for comfort.

After their mother leaves a preteen and her siblings, the preteen must navigate her emerging adolescence by herself in an orphanage.

In the late 20th century, an aging couple's daughter returns to live with her parents in an attempt to flee her failing marriage. While the mother easily slips back into her maternal role, the arthritic father struggles to empathize with his youngest child, and, in his increasing frustration, commits an unforgivable act that isolates him from his family.

For a nine-year-old boy, a visit from his uncle, an alcoholic Irish bachelor, means surprising gifts and drama between his parents.

The children in a family grow tired of hosting their middle-aged cousin, but his expulsion brings unexpected strife to the family.

Thirteen-year-old Angelle gets into a car accident when her drunken father begs her to drive home in his stead. Later, she must take the witness stand in court and decide her family's future with her testimony.

Unwilling to return to boarding school, a girl begs her mother to let her leave. But when her father becomes involved, she must come to terms with the hatred she feels for her mother's weakness and dependence on alcohol.

In post-World War II Japan, a boy is raised by his frigid father without love and spends the rest of his life endlessly pursuing it.