Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world.
John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.
Donner and his roomates are out of money and about to get evicted from their home. So as a diversion from their situation, he invites them to his father's cabin in the Canadian wilderness. They all go along, but soon learn that there's no cabin - he's really trying to find Sasquatch.
Kevin Mitnick is quite possibly the best hacker in the world. Hunting for more and more information, seeking more and more cyber-trophies every day, he constantly looks for bigger challenges. When he breaks into the computer of a security expert and an ex-hacker, he finds one - and much more than that...
It's not that T.J. doesn't love his parents, it's just that he's trying to kill them. Thirty-two, unemployed, and derailed somewhere on the path to adulthood, T.J. has boomeranged back home. There, his ennui takes the form of increasingly real fantasies about offing his parents and becoming man of the house. When his high school sweetheart gets engaged, T.J. is forced to deal with his real life, parents and all.
Starting from childhood attempts at illustration, the protagonist pursues his true obsession to art school. But as he learns how the art world really works, he finds that he must adapt his vision to the reality that confronts him.
Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two thugs who tried to break into/steal his truck. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader of a violent white supremacist gang that committed acts of racial crime throughout L.A. and his actions greatly influenced Danny. Reformed and fresh out of prison, Derek severs contact with the gang and becomes determined to keep Danny from going down the same violent path as he did.
Thoroughly disgruntled, Santa (Goodman) opts to take a year off from delivering presents, until a young man helps him rediscover the meaning of the holidays.
Like most kids, Ned idolized his father and dreamed of following in his footsteps. Unfortunately, his father was a two-bit crook who spent most of his life in jail. Without a family of his own, Ned falls in with the Aryan Brotherhood. Soon after, Ned is placed in a mental hospital where he is mesmerized by a young black girl who believes Adolf Hitler was reincarnated in her.
An academic obsessed with "roadside attractions" and his tv-star daughter finally discover the world's largest ice cream cone, the centerpiece for an old gold-rush town struggling to stay on the map. They end up staying longer than expected because of an accident that spilled an unknown cola ingredient all over the highway. They spend the next few days with the various residents of the town which include a teenage girl who loves to blow things up and a boy trying to keep alive his fathers dream of building a beachside resort in the middle of the desert.
Taken aback by his mother's wedding announcement, a young man returns home in an effort to stop her from marrying his old high school gym teacher, a man who made high school hell for generations of students.