The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.
Laurens works for the German Minister of Finance and is an extremely correct and conscientious person. He knows his way around numbers, but less so with women. One day he meets Gina, a single young woman. She is sitting alone at one of the tables and Laurens forces himself to sit with her. Hesitantly, a first conversation develops between them. This is the beginning of a seemingly impossible love story that not only throws Laurens' life into turmoil. Laurens is secretary to the German finance minister. Over breakfast, he approaches the attractive Gina and invites her to accompany him to the G8 summit. There, Gina realizes that she doesn't fit into the world of politicians and business bosses. She is the only one to say what she thinks - and causes quite a stir. Laurens has to choose between his career and the love of his life.
It's 1947 and the borderlines between India and Pakistan are being drawn. A young girl bears witnesses to tragedy as her ayah is caught between the love of two men and the rising tide of political and religious violence.
The year is 1938, and Mahatma Gandhi's groundbreaking philosophies are sweeping across India, but 8-year-old Chuyia, newly widowed, must go to live with other outcast widows on an ashram. Her presence transforms the ashram as she befriends two of her compatriots.
A thirty-something southern woman searches for love, despite the burdens she carries with her.
In a beauty salon in Beirut the lives of five women cross paths. The beauty salon is a colorful and sensual microcosm where they share and entrust their hopes, fears and expectations.
A married woman falls in love with a 19-year-old girl, and she has to make a choice between her family and the one who might be the love of her life.
Jamie's marriage depends on her birthday gift to her wife. But what if the handbag that Cherry covets is simply impossible to get?
Mollie and James are together and raising a family, which now consists of an older Mikey and his baby sister, Julie. Tension between the siblings arises, and as well with Mollie and James when Mollie's brother Stuart moves in. Mikey is also learning how to use the toilet for the first time.
Yorkshire moorlands, northern England, in the late 18th century. Young Heathcliff, rescued from the streets of Liverpool by Mr. Earnshaw, the owner of Wuthering Heights, an isolated farm, develops over the years an insane passion for Cathy, his foster sister, a sick obsession destined to end tragically.
Book superstore magnate, Joe Fox and independent book shop owner, Kathleen Kelly fall in love in the anonymity of the Internet—both blissfully unaware that he's trying to put her out of business.
Mollie is a single working mother who's out to find the perfect father for her child. Her baby, Mikey, prefers James, a cab driver turned babysitter who has what it takes to make them both happy. But Mollie won't even consider James. It's going to take all the tricks a baby can think of to bring them together before it's too late.
Desperate to jar herself from the rich tedium of picture-perfect Beverly Hills, Sophie moves across town to another world: Echo Park. She quickly strikes up an unexpected connection with Alex, a handsome neighbor and British expat who is reluctantly selling his beloved home to move back to London. As the summer passes, a romance driven by uncertainty compels them to reassess where each belongs.
Martin, an ex-Parisian well-heeled hipster passionate about Gustave Flaubert who settled into a Norman village as a baker, sees an English couple moving into a small farm nearby. Not only are the names of the new arrivals Gemma and Charles Bovery, but their behavior also seems to be inspired by Flaubert's heroes.
Daisy Baroness Eggloffsburg, a ball of energy, is a spoiled and rather lively, cheerful wild child who is always in the mood for pranks. Her uncle Egon, a stern old gentleman, thinks she has had enough of her foolishness and boozy ideas and needs a man to tell her off and tame Daisy. Harry Spring, the young sportsman hired for the job, is supposed to get both the girl and Baron Eggloffsburg, the owner of the racing stable, back on their feet. But Daisy doesn't give in so easily and now begins to give the young gallant a good grooming.
A young woman escapes her wildly eccentric family in search for a life of normalcy.
When young dockworker Jude leaves Liverpool to find his estranged father in the United States, he is swept up by the waves of change that are re-shaping the nation. Jude falls in love with Lucy, who joins the growing anti-war movement. As the body count in Vietnam rises, political tensions at home spiral out of control and the star-crossed lovers find themselves in a psychedelic world gone mad.
An old and poor couple, Charles and Lucie, scrape by working as a concierge and an untalented antique dealer, respectively. But one day, their dreary daily routine is disrupted by the surprising news that they have inherited a luxurious house in the South of France.
A married young academic falls under the sexual thrall of a much older man whose air of jaded ennui conceals a secret desire for vengeance.
A very skilful young architect from Berlin, Lea Winter, who has a promising career, is pregnant with Klaus Arnheim, her head of department, a long-time lover but married and father of a family. At the announcement of this unexpected pregnancy, of course, he only envisages abortion for Lea. However, the young woman hesitates. On the advice of her gynecologist, she decides to leave Ireland for a few days to think and make a decision without any pressure. She finds there a simple, authentic life and is confronted with another rhythm of life, with other values and with herself.