Ella Peterson works in the basement office of Susanswerphone, a telephone answering service. She listens in on others' lives and adds some interest to her own humdrum existence by adopting different identities for her clients. They include an out-of-work Method actor, a dentist with musical yearnings, and in particular playwright Jeffrey Moss, who is suffering from writer's block and desperately needs a muse.
The lives of a disparate group of unfulfilled people converge at a small, seaside English hotel.
On Ironbound Island, native Fiona McKay arrives from Europe with her teenage daughter Clair, hoping that the peace of the island will help the girl get over the death of her boyfriend. The girl finds comfort in the company of a visiting American girl and more so in the stories of Celia, a crazy old local who weaves enchanting tales which cleverly combine her own experiences on the island with mystifying legends.
A writer forms a triangle with a schoolmarm and a Mexican general on the run.
In a rural village in Thailand, Mak is sent to fight in a war and leaves his pregnant wife, Nak. Mak is injured and barely survives. He returns home to his doting wife and child, or so he thinks.
The path of a street fighter and a dancer on skates, who are in love, is paved by friendship, grit and hope.
Ambroise gets bored every night. To kill time, he makes random calls. Sometimes Ambroise finds a lonely woman on the other side of the received.
Stefania works in a bookshop. Shortly before closing for summer holidays, Andrea, who was left behind by his fiancée, enters the store.
A novelist comes to haunted house and starts writing story on the ghost named Bhargavi. The novelist understands the cruel death of Bhargavi and her lover.
Composer Steven Lauddem is plagued by a creative block which leaves him unable to finish the score for his big comeback opera. When his former therapist-turned-wife Patricia suggests he rekindle his creativity by getting lost in the city, Steven sets out in search of inspiration. His epiphany comes after he meets a spirited woman named Katrina and discovers his life has much more potential than he bargained for, or ever could have imagined.
While on a trip to Paris with his fiancée's family, a nostalgic screenwriter finds himself mysteriously going back to the 1920s every day at midnight.
Reporter Charles Wills, in Paris to cover the end of World War II, falls for the beautiful Helen Ellswirth following a brief flirtation with her sister, Marion. After he and Helen marry, Charles pursues his novelistic ambition while supporting his new bride with a deadening job at a newspaper wire service. But when an old investment suddenly makes the family wealthy, their marriage begins to unravel — until a sudden tragedy changes everything.
Three years later, Tomaz meets Milena in Ljubljana where she practices dancing. In order to spend more time with her, Tomaz enrolls at the dance club where he finds many new friends. As the club is faced with close-down, the members decide to save it by setting up a dance show for the urban elite.
Six young people spend the morning after a wild club spree trying to piece together their misadventures from the night before, including a trip to the veterinarian hospital, at least one breakup and the unexpected discovery of a mobster's corpse. As the group shares their fragmented memories, some of their stories start to fit together while others just lead to more questions.
Curmudgeonly author Giles De'Ath, a widower with a marked distaste for modern popular culture, attempts to buy a ticket for a film adaptation of an E.M. Forster novel, but instead finds himself watching a tacky teen sex comedy. Yet when the beautiful Ronnie Bostock appears on the movie screen, Giles finds himself caught in a whirlwind of unanswered questions about both his own sexuality and his place in late 20th-century society.
During a brief summer vacation, a lonely woman recalls her first love thirteen years earlier.
After graduating from film school, Aura returns to New York to live with her photographer mother, Siri, and her sister, Nadine, who has just finished high school. Aura is directionless and wonders where to go next in her career and her life. She takes a job in a restaurant and tries unsuccessfully to develop relationships with men, including Keith, a chef where she works, and cult Internet star Jed.
A married woman and her lover murder her husband and dump his body into a well, but his ghost returns to haunt them as the local gossip intensifies.
Will Henry is a newly single graphic novelist balancing being a parent to his young twin daughters and teaching a classroom full of college students, all the while trying to navigate the rich complexities of new love and letting go of the woman who left him.
A young man, whose girlfriend has just left him and taken their dog, falls for another woman who is also on the rebound, but who prefers the company of her dog to the company of men.