This drama centers on Hank Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of “Factotum” author Charles Bukowski, who wanders around Los Angeles, CA trying to live off jobs which don’t interfere with his primary interest, which is writing. Along the way, he fends off the distractions offered by women, drinking and gambling.

An old man in a nursing home reads a story to an old woman each day. The story he reads follows two young lovers named Allie Hamilton and Noah Calhoun. They met one evening at a carnival many years ago. Allie’s parents separate Noah and Allie. They disapprove of Noah’s lack of wealth, and move Allie away. After waiting for Noah to write her for several years, Allie meets and becomes engaged to a handsome young soldier named Lon. In a local newspaper, Noah’s picture catches Allie’s eye. He is standing in front of a fully restored, 200 year old home. The article is filled with praise for his accomplishments. Allie’s heart nearly bursts. The last time she saw this house it was a rotted decaying shamble. She stood enfolded in Noah’s arms in the great entryway and listened to his plans to buy and restore this house. Just the way she wanted it. With her love for Noah still alive, the picture pulls at her heart. She has to go back, see if Noah is okay, and tell him about her marriage. They both think the echo deep in their hearts, the one that has lasted all these years, is not shared by the other. The cry they could not stifle. It wasn’t over for me.

In Chicago, the lonely architect Alex Wyler has a troubled relationship with his father Simon Wyler. In 2004, he buys an old glass house in a lake, designed and built by his father, and he finds a message in his mailbox from the former tenant, the also lonely Dr. Kate Forster, asking to deliver her correspondence in an address downtown. Alex meets his brother Henry in Chicago and when they go to the address with Dr. Forster’s correspondence, they find a building of luxury apartments under construction to be delivered eighteen months later. After some messages, Alex and Kate disclose that she is living in 2006 and Alex in 2004, they fall in love for each other and they try to find means to meet each other.

Former spy Ethan Hunt is called back into action to recover a missing IMF Agent. But complications arise when his fiancée is captured and he must fight to get her back.

A former L.A. drug dealer (Thomas Jane) has moved to Houston to make a new life for himself as a married architect. Everything falls apart when he is suddenly visited by one of his former cohorts (Aaron Eckhart) who comes carrying heroin. Discovering the dope, the architect flushes it down the drain. This sets up a series of tough customers seeking the dope including a rasta hitman (Glenn Plummer), an ex-lover (Paulina Porizkova) who ties up and rapes James, a criminal (James LeGros) with a penchant for torture, and a rogue cop (Mickey Rourke). Michael Jeter also appears as a psychologist from an adoption agency where the couple is seeking to adopt a child.