An Italian-American family begins to crumble apart after experiencing several tragic accidents, but the father tries desperately to stay strong and remains optimistic that everyone will one day be together again.

A roomer lives in a house of an old couple in Long Island. He lives a meager life and witnesses strange things in his small town full of gossip and secrets.

A lonely and financially unstable middle-aged man tries and fails to sell Everlasting Beauty kitchenware to a family on the Black side of town in order to pay for his daughter's schooling.

A seventeen-year-old student meets an older man on the street and agrees to go on a date with him, only to find out that he is only interested in her because she resembles his dead lover.

An Irish-American man seeks refuge from his overbearing mother by focusing on his job - but when he realises that he is in love with the machine that he operates, the shame threatens to take away everything he has worked for.

When an isolated group of US soldiers are on an expedition in the Arctic, one shoots and wounds an owl and takes it back to camp as a pet. One of his associates thinks that the owl should be killed or set free, and acts accordingly.