Various lives converge on an isolated island, all connected by an author whose novel has become inextricably entwined with his own life.
A prison guard begins a tentative romance with the unsuspecting widow of a man whose execution he presided over.
In the 1930s, bored waitress Bonnie Parker falls in love with an ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, stealing cars and robbing banks.
A waitress from Chicago falls in love with a man from rural Minnesota and marries him, with the intent of living a better life - but life on the farm has its own challenges.
Waitress Saara meets handsome journalist Joni, and soon moves in to live with him. Joni tries his best to satisfy Saara sexually but, disturbed by violent lesbian fantasies, she is unable to experience orgasm. Trying to cope with the situation, Saara has another brief affair back in her old home town.
A penniless middle-aged spinster scrapes by giving piano lessons in the Dublin of the 1950s. She makes a sad last bid for love with a fellow resident of her rundown boarding house, who imagines she has the money to bankroll the business he hopes to open.
Brought back to life by an unorthodox scientist, a young woman runs off with a lawyer on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, she grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.
Lola, a Mexican waitress working in Madrid, befriends a 30-year-old suicidal man who has borrowed $1,000,000 to spend on his last day on Earth, knowing he will be killed anyway if he fails to return the money. After meeting Lola, however, he decides that life might be worth living after all.
Tired of being a small-town waitress, Donna departs with the latest carnival show, living with entertainers Frankie and Patch in a tense, emotional triangle.
There's little wonder in the working-class lives of Bill, Eileen, and their three grown daughters. They're lonely Londoners. Nadia, a cafe waitress, places personal ads, looking for love; Debbie, a single mom, entertains men at the hair salon after hours; her son spends part of the weekend with her ex, a man with a hair-trigger temper. Molly is expecting her first baby and its father acts as if the responsibility is too much for him.