Janet Flanders is a small-town, unsophisticated young woman who is seduced by the fantasy of romantic love; she believes that someday her prince will come to sweep her away. Then she meets handsome Brett Becker; she believes she's found the man of her dreams -- little suspecting he is engaged to marry a wealthy socialite. Deep into her illusion that Brett loves her, she moves to Chicago to be closer to him, deluge him with calls and love notes, tells her family about her boyfriend Brett, and buys an engagement ring. Her obsession with him leads her from intrigue and eventually to murder.
A young Greek woman falls in love with a non-Greek and struggles to get her family to accept him while she comes to terms with her heritage and cultural identity.
An endearing light comedy about a woman who spontaneously becomes a resident of Venice after her family left her behind. While enjoying the wonderful people she meets she achieves a new life and the first time independent of her family.
With the death of her mother, eight-year-old Anna ends her childhood: From now on, she has to look after the nine-member family. Deprivation-rich years, which also find no end when Anna marries: Her husband Albert must be a soldier in the Second World War, and the pregnant Anna has to work hard in the farm and care sick relatives. Lonely and exposed to the harassment of the tyrannical mother-in-law, she waits for Albert, with no certainty that he will ever return.
A cat burglar is forced to take a bickering, dysfunctional family hostage on Christmas Eve.
Frances Mayes, a 35-year-old professor and writer from San Francisco, decides to take a tour of Tuscany following a difficult divorce. After impulsively buying a run-down villa in the Italian countryside, she begins to piece her life back together in unexpected ways.
Sarah Nolan is a newly divorced woman cautiously rediscovering romance with the enthusiastic but often misguided help of her well-meaning family. As she braves a series of hilarious disastrous mismatches and first dates, Sarah begins to trust her own instincts again and learns that, no matter what, it's never a good idea to give up on love.
When her bossy socialite mother-in-law moves in, a soap opera writer’s life becomes real-life drama and a crisis forces them to choose: pride or unity.
Following the unexplained suicide of his wife Liza, website designer Wilson Joel turns to huffing gasoline fumes and remote control gaming while avoiding an inevitable conflict with his mother-in-law.
A seemingly innocent voicemail message left on a man’s answer machine by his ex, soon turns on its head when we learn of his dark past in their relationship. We quickly learn that our protagonist may not be as innocent as he seems, through the heart-wrenching monologue delivered to him via the tiny machine in his home.
The arrival of a newborn girl causes the gradual disintegration of the Cairn family; particularly for 9-year-old Joshua, an eccentric boy whose proper upbringing and refined tastes both take a sinister turn.
Longtime friends become feuding mothers-in-law when their children marry.
When you're a newly divorced woman with two older children, it is very difficult to "rebuild your life". By chance, Monica meets someone new, but will she be able to seize this new oportunity for happiness?
After her husband leaves her, a woman travels to London for the funeral of the pop star, Victor Fox, she's adored all her life. There, she meets the lover of the dead pop star, and convinces him to come back to Chicago with her to figure out who killed the singer.
In their finely appointed Connecticut home, Agnes and Tobias have grown used to the imperfection and fragility of their marriage. Quietly nursing their grief over the death of their son, they get by well enough together. Agnes' boozy sister wanders in and out, and they allow anxiety-stricken friends to move into an upstairs room. But, when their daughter, Julia, shows up announcing her fourth divorce, long-repressed emotions come to the surface.
A ring passes between a lot of different people, giving the bearer or someone close a new meaning to life. Actors, embezzlers, old ladies and cheated husbands all seem to gain temporary hope from misery and disillusionment.
Arati takes a job as a door-to-door saleswoman in Calcutta's wealthy neighbourhoods, in defiance of her traditionally-minded husband, Subrata, and his live-in parents. Emulating her Anglo-Indian friend Edith, who speaks equal to the men she encounters on the job, Arati quickly becomes her firm's top salesperson. When Subrata loses his job, the power dynamic begins to shift.
Mathias Pascal, only son of a once-rich family, marries beautiful Romalinda, who has a terrible mother-in-law. She controls her daughter, and soon his home life becomes a nightmare. His only moments of lights are his mother and baby, but both die on the same day. Shocked, he leaves his hometown and goes to Monte Carlo, where he wins a fortune at the casino. Returning home, he reads his own obituary in a paper. They have found a corpse in a creek and connected it with his disappearance. Mathias, noticing that he is now free from all ties to his old life, decides to start a new one.
A celebrity psychiatrist struggles to find a date for a wedding. Her dearest ex is getting married and she needs to find someone fancy enough to hide the fact that she is lonely, drinks too much and is pretty fucked up in any imaginable way.
When Ethan arrives at the airport just in time to declare his undying love for his girlfriend, love appears to have conquered all. The scene, however, is really the ending of Ethan's novel, which his agent calls "unrealistic." Ethan soon meets a waitress, Jesse, and falls in love with her despite her growing devotion to Troy, a charming businessman. But the line between reality and fiction becomes increasingly blurred.