A man with a low IQ has accomplished great things in his life and been present during significant historic events—in each case, far exceeding what anyone imagined he could do. But despite all he has achieved, his one true love eludes him.
Five years after their summer together in Barcelona, Xavier, William, Wendy, Martine and Isabelle reunite.
After an accident, acclaimed novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued by a nurse who claims to be his biggest fan. Her obsession takes a dark turn when she holds him captive in her remote Colorado home and forces him to write back to life the popular literary character he killed off.
Louise, who has just written a novel, comes to Paris to meet with a potential publisher. While in the city, she stays with her older sister, Martine, who in many ways is the exact opposite of Louise: she lives in a fashionable neighborhood, is cold to others, and has snobby friends, while Louise lives in a small town and is thoroughly unpretentious. Louise's apparent happiness -- and similarities to their mother -- gradually gets on Martine's nerves.
The lives of Ted and Marion Cole are thrown into disarray when their two adolescent sons die in a car wreck. Marion withdraws from Ted and Ruth, the couple's daughter. Ted, a well-known writer, hires as his assistant a student named Eddie, who looks oddly similar to one of the Coles' dead sons. The couple separate, and Marion begins an affair with Eddie, while Ted has a dalliance with his neighbor Evelyn.
Alexandre Boursault, a provincial notary, would have been the happiest man alive if his wife did not openly display her political views and participate in all kinds of demonstrations.
Mexican immigrant and single mother Flor Moreno finds housekeeping work with Deborah and John Clasky, a well-off couple with two children of their own. When Flor admits she can't handle the schedule because of her daughter, Cristina, Deborah decides they should move into the Clasky home. Cultures clash and tensions run high as Flor and the Claskys struggle to share space while raising their children on their own, and very different, terms.
Years of working in the food industry have made Juana, a working-class Latina, a chef of speed and skill. Searching for financial stability, she stumbles into a high-energy, male-dominated Japanese cuisine kitchen. The new atmosphere re-ignites her passions for food and life and makes her hungry to get mixed up in the flavors of this new world.
Writer Harry Block draws inspiration from people he knows, and from events that happened to him, sometimes causing these people to become alienated from him as a result.
Ray Kinsella is an Iowa farmer who hears a mysterious voice telling him to turn his cornfield into a baseball diamond. He does, but the voice's directions don't stop -- even after the spirits of deceased ballplayers turn up to play.
Trying to bootstrap his way out of Brooklyn's mean streets is Diamond, a rap musician. With his long-time pal Gage acting as his manager, he's trying to lay down a demo tape with cut-rate studio time. To pay the bills, he and Gage run drugs for "Mr. B." Inside a week, Diamond's beloved mother dies suddenly, his father appears after an absence of 12 years and wants a relationship, and his girlfriend Kia tells him she's pregnant, asking him if he's ready to be a father. Gage steals $100,000 in a multiple-felony robbery so that Diamond can record a full album, not knowing it's Mr. B's money he's taken. B wants his money, Diamond wants his music, Tia wants an answer.
Mother and daughter bicker over everything -- what Anna wears, whom she likes and what she wants to do when she's older. In turn, Anna detests Tess's fiancé. When a magical fortune cookie switches their personalities, they each get a peek at how the other person feels, thinks and lives.
No one expects much from Christy Brown, a boy with cerebral palsy born into a working-class Irish family. Though Christy is a spastic quadriplegic and essentially paralyzed, a miraculous event occurs when, at the age of 5, he demonstrates control of his left foot by using chalk to scrawl a word on the floor. With the help of his steely mother — and no shortage of grit and determination — Christy overcomes his infirmity to become a painter, poet and author.
Felicie and Charles have a whirlwind holiday romance. Due to a mix-up on addresses they lose contact, and five years later at Christmas-time Felicie is living with her mother in a cold Paris with a daughter as a reminder of that long-ago summer. For male companionship she oscillates between hairdresser Maxence and the intellectual Loic, but seems unable to commit to either as the memory of Charles and what might have been hangs over everything.
A famous self-help guru returns from a book tour to a house suddenly filled with an estranged friend. The two friends then spiral into a drug-induced contemplation of the human condition.
A popular American novelist, who has written her first non-fiction work about the political infidelities and corruption within the tiny South American country of San Hermoso, returns to that very country as part of a publicity junket prepared by her publishing company. Traveling with her best friend and confidant, she is abducted by a mysterious cartel that proves to be the secret police arm of the government. In order to win her freedom and to save her friend's life, she is forced to commit a murder that would be beneficial to San Hermoso's dictator. Will she be willing to trade a life for a life and pull the trigger to murder her unknown target in cold blood? Will the C.I.A. be able to reach her in time? Will she even survive?
A seedy writer of sleazy pulp novels is recruited by a quirky, reclusive ex-actor to help him write his biography at his house in Malta.
A father-daughter relationship evolves through an era of bohemian decadence in 1970s San Francisco to the sober and heartbreaking era of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.
With his marriage and career against the ropes, dejected author Jack Spencer travels with his wife, Amanda, to an isolated glamping retreat in search of a spark. When a surprise double booking finds their private retreat anything but private, Jack spins into a comedic exploration of love, lost dreams, small-town-wisdom, and friendship with a miniature donkey to get over himself before he loses all he holds dear.
Desperate to provide a comfortable life for her children, Ina willingly takes all kinds of jobs available to her. But what happens when Ina's family continues to fall apart despite all her sacrifices?