Sushila decides to have a baby through IVF and names her Gauri. When Gauri grows up and decides to get married to Anand, his family insists on meeting her biological father.
Mrs. Deshmukh
Phataphekar / Vijay Satoskar
Anand 'Andu' 'Andya' Deshmukh
Lila, a famous retired singer, loses her memory after suffering an accident, just as she planned her return to the stage.
Or shoulders a lot: she's 17 or 18, a student, works evenings at a restaurant, recycles cans and bottles for cash, and tries to keep her mother Ruthie from returning to streetwalking in Tel Aviv. Ruthie calls Or "my treasure," but Ruthie is a burden. She's just out of hospital, weak, and Or has found her a job as a house cleaner. The call of the quick money on the street is tough for Ruthie to ignore. Or's emotions roil further when the mother of the youth she's in love with comes to the flat to warn her off. With love fading and Ruthie perhaps beyond help, Or's choices narrow.
Through a series of flashbacks, four Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China explore their pasts.
Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia, from 13 to 18 years old, sent from Beirut to her best friend who left for Paris to escape the civil war. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.
A Chinese-American lesbian and her traditionalist mother are reluctant to go public with secret loves that clash against cultural expectations.
Substance-addicted Hollywood actress, Suzanne Vale is on the skids. After a spell at a detox centre her film company insists as a condition of continuing to employ her that she live with her mother, herself once a star and now a champion drinker. Such a set-up is bad news for Suzanne who has struggled for years to get out of her mother's shadow, and who still treats her like a child. Despite these and other problems, Suzanne begins to see the funny side of her situation, and also realises that not only do daughters have mothers—mothers do too.
A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.
Aïcha is a troubled teenage girl who cannot forgive her mother for kicking out the stepfather she adored. Aïcha longs for him to come back and take her away. When she meets Baz, a man twice her age, it’s love at first sight for her; the real kind, the one that hurts. Baz wants to help this lost little girl, but she wants much more from him, and is ready to do anything to get it.
On the outskirts of the capital of Chad, determined single mother Amina works tirelessly to provide for herself and her 15-year old daughter Maria. When Amina discovers Maria is pregnant and does not want a child, the two women begin to seek out an abortion, condemned by both religion and law. In the process, mother and daughter forge a connection stronger than any they’ve ever known.
Christmas Eve in New York, and the lonely divorced publisher, Rose Collins, needs a miracle to improve the health of her mother, interned in a hospital with Alzheimers. She feels sorry for another patient and meets his visitor. Meanwhile, Nina Vasquez breaks her engagement with her beloved fiancé Mike due to his suffocating jealousy, but misses him. Mike is stalked by a stranger, bartender Artie Venzuela. The poor Jules arranges to spend Christmas Eve in the hospital, where he spent the best Christmas of his life when he was a teenager. The lives of some of these characters cross with others along the night.
Does the idea of a perfect life leading to love, marriage and babies exist? Shriya finds it a challenge, especially when she meets men like Siddarth who think marriage is a recipe for disaster, and babies should be banned. When times are changing and relationships are evolving, the idea of love remains timeless- the more you resist it the more you will fall in love.
When pretty dress-maker Andy joins a motley crew of brides-to-be for a grueling bridal boot camp, where young ladies learn how to become "better" brides, she thinks she's found the perfect place to become the perfect bride. But when Andy meets Casey, a handsome delivery man who doesn't believe in marriage, she starts to question her picture perfect image of her current engagement and what marriage truly means.
Holly is tired of moving every time her mom Jean breaks up with yet another second-rate guy. To distract her mother from her latest bad choice, Holly conceives the perfect plan for the perfect man, an imaginary secret admirer who will romance Jean and boost her self-esteem.
Renowned film star Joan Crawford's abuse towards Christina, her adopted daughter, intensifies as her professional and romantic relationships turn sour.
Wealthy socialite Charlotte Cartwright and her dear friend Alice Pratt, a working class woman of high ideals, have enjoyed a lasting friendship throughout several decades. Recently, their lives have become mired in turmoil as their adult children’s extramarital affairs, unethical business practices, and a dark secret threaten to derail family fortunes and unravel the lives of all involved. Charlotte and Alice decide to take a breather from it all by making a cross-country road trip in which they rediscover themselves and possibly find a way to save their families from ruin.
A frustrated, angry teenage girl awakens something in the woods when she naively performs an occult ritual to invoke a witch to kill her mother.
A spirited young bride-to-be living with her single mother on a small Greek island secretly invites three of her mother's ex-boyfriends in hope of finding her biological father to walk her down the aisle.
Young, impulsive Rosetta lives a hard and stressful life as she struggles to support herself and her alcoholic mother. Refusing all charity, she is desperate to maintain a dignified job.
Kris Kringle, seemingly the embodiment of Santa Claus, is asked to portray the jolly old fellow at Macy's following his performance in the Thanksgiving Day parade. His portrayal is so complete that many begin to question if he truly is Santa Claus, while others question his sanity.