Hassidic Boy
The lives of a Hassidic young man (Yoyli) and a Polish young woman (Mariola) intersect when they find themselves secluded in a car after he offers her a ride home. This, after Yoyli and his mother picked her up from a street corner in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where Polish, immigrant women wait to be taken to Hassidic homes to help with the cleaning of their house. In the movie they negotiate the labor at $8 an hour. After scrubbing and scouring for a bit, and after observing a world that is completely foreign to her, Mariola succumbs to the toxic fumes of the cleaning agents and falls and faints. After regaining consciousness, she leaves the house in an angry huff. At the prodding of his sister and father, Yoyli goes out to find her and offer her a ride. She accepts not realizing the differences of their worlds that would place the two young people in a tense and heated situation that is never fully resolved.
Carl
Park Slope, Brooklyn, 1986. Cuando Walt Berkman, un influenciable chico de 16 años, finge que es suya la canción de Pink Floyd "Hey You" y la canta en un acto del instituto, tenía muy claros sus motivos. "Sentía que podía haberla escrito yo, así que el hecho de que ya estuviera escrita no dejaba de ser un mero tecnicismo." Al mismo tiempo, su hermano Frank, de doce años, bebe cerveza y habla sin pudor de la vida sexual de su madre. Ambos simplemente reaccionan ante la bomba que ha estallado en el seno de su apacible vida familiar: sus padres, Bernard –otrora un prometedor escritor y ahora un profesor de mediana edad- y Joan –una prometedora escritora que va a publicar un libro- anuncian que se separan. Los cimientos familiares se tambalean. Walt y Frank se enfrentan a lo que es repartirse los fines de semana y al desbarajuste de pasar una noche con uno y otra noche con otro.
