Rosa, a fifty-five year old single woman, and Sabina, a Cuban girl of 25, are neighbors and share a rooftop terrace in the city. Two uprooted women. They haven't met but they share a lot in common, both having left their home and past behind.
Julieta goes with her cello to a luthier workshop and, after observing handling their hands on instruments hypnotic damaged, it emerges in the sense that, like them, your soul asks also be healed.
Simon transports illegal immigrants to New York, leaving them to their fate. He is discovered by the coastguard and Andrés, a young sailor, saves his life. When he falls for a young protegée of Simon conflict erupts.
Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy's grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy's birthday cake.
Grady is a 50-ish English professor who hasn't had a thing published in years -- not since he wrote his award winning "Great American Novel" 7 years ago. This weekend proves even worse than he could imagine as he finds himself reeling from one misadventure to another in the company of a new wonder boy author.
Friends for ten years, a group of twenty-somethings head for the ski slopes as guests of Ian's father. (Ian and dad are estranged because dad worked too many hours when Ian was a lad.) Dad has something to say, but Ian won't listen. Meanwhile, David is gay and virginal; Ian's business partner, Keaton, is unhappy that his sister Jane is pregnant with no plans to tell the father; Lisa is everybody's pal and no one's lover; John, stuck in adolescence, is always on the make. He brings German-born stunner, Carla, and promptly loses her affection to Hans, a fast-talking ski instructor. David meets Manny: they have chess in common. Soon, surprises abound as relationships take new turns.