The opening of the film depicts teenager Ken Park (nicknamed "Krap Nek") skateboarding across Visalia. He arrives at a skate park, where he casually sits in the middle of it, sets up a camcorder, and shoots himself in the head with a handgun. His death is used to set up the rest of the film, which follows the lives of four other teens he used to hang out with, shortly before the suicide.
A contemporary, ensemble drama telling the complex tale of six high school students whose lives are interwoven. All six students have their own personal problems and goals.
Jessie is a middle-aged woman living with her widowed mother, Thelma. One night, she calmly tells Thelma that she plans to commit suicide that very evening. She makes this revelation all while nonchalantly organizing household items and preparing to do her mother's nails.
In 1968, the Dominican friars of São Paulo became part of the resistance against the military dictatorship in Brazil. Under the pseudonyms of "Tito", "Betto", "Oswaldo", "Fernando", and "Ivo", the friars join the Ação Libertadora Nacional, a communist guerrilla movement headed by Carlos Marighella. The friars' superior, Diogo, recommends them to be more careful, and they decide to disperse themselves.
A young, handsome man wakes up to a female voice telling him to open his eyes. He drives to an empty city. He wakes up again, this time to a woman in his bed. He tells her not to leave messages on his alarm.
Troy Johnson (Josh Janowicz), the supplier of prescription drugs to fellow high school students in the fictional southern California town of Hillside, commits suicide. Troy's best friend Dean Stiffle (Jamie Bell), is prescribed more antidepressants by his psychiatrist father Bill (William Fichtner) after discovering the body. When Dean returns to school, he is antagonized by drug dealers Billy (Justin Chatwin) and Lee (Lou Taylor Pucci), who were supplied by Troy. Their friend, Crystal Falls (Camilla Belle), flirts with Dean, but he soon realizes that her true intentions are for Dean to retrieve the remaining drugs in Troy's home and refuses to cooperate. To force Dean to procure the drugs, Billy and Lee plan to kidnap Dean's brother, Charlie (Rory Culkin), as a ransom, but they end up kidnapping another boy named Charlie Bratley (Thomas Curtis) instead.
L'histoire vraie de la journaliste et animatrice de télévision américaine Christine Chubbuck qui, le 15 juillet 1974, lors de son émission Suncoast Digest sur la chaine locale de Sarasota en Floride, se suicida en direct en se tirant une balle dans la tête.
When shy and introspective Mary arrives as a new freshman student at an all-girls boarding school, she shares a dorm room with two seniors, Paulie and Victoria (nicknamed Tori). In contrast to the timid Mary, Paulie is full of life. For example, at Mary's very first day at the school during a quiet afternoon party on the campus thrown by the staff as a welcome back gathering, Paulie turns the events into a loud music-blasting dance party and spikes the punch with hard liquor. In an effort to break Mary out of her shell, Paulie and Tori involve her in their activities, such as running in the morning. When Mary's roommates learn that her mother recently died, Paulie nicknames her "Mary Brave".
Following the death of his wife, Arthur Pratt (Philip Baker Hall) is on the verge of taking his own life. However, just after he had finished burying his wife’s ashes at the park, a duckling crosses his path. Noticing that the duckling is all alone, Arthur decides to help it find its flock. Unfortunately, they end up finding the flock as roadkill. As a result, Arthur then chooses to take the surviving duckling back to his apartment, where he bathes and feeds it. No longer on the verge, Arthur is committed to raise and take care of the duckling, which he names “Joe.”
Lance Clayton (Williams) is a single father and high school English teacher. He dreams of becoming a famous writer, but his previous novels have all been rejected by publishers. His 15-year-old son, Kyle (Sabara), is a pornography-obsessed underachiever who despises everyone, especially his father. Kyle is a student at the school where Lance teaches an unpopular poetry class. His only friend is Andrew, a fellow student who spends his evenings at the Claytons' house trying to avoid his alcoholic mother. Kyle's consistently poor academic performance and vile behavior gain the attention of the school principal (Geoff Pierson), who advises Lance that Kyle should transfer to a special-needs school (it is loosely implied that Kyle may be on the autism spectrum.) Lance is in a non-committal relationship with a younger teacher named Claire (Gilmore), who is spending time with a fellow teacher named Mike (Henry Simmons), whose writing class is more successful than Lance's. On nights when Claire cancels their dates and he is alone, Lance bonds with his elderly neighbor Bonnie (Mitzi McCall).
Matt Travis is good-looking, popular, and his school's best competitive swimmer, so everyone is shocked when he inexplicably commits suicide. As the following year unfolds, each member of his family struggles to recover from the tragedy with mixed results.
Wilson Joel's (Philip Seymour Hoffman) wife Liza (Annie Morgan) has, for an unexplained reason, committed suicide. Wilson one night discovers a sealed letter from his wife, which he believes to be her suicide note. In his grief-stricken state and with the added stress of finding the letter, which he cannot bring himself to open and read, he forms an addiction to inhaling gasoline fumes (“huffing”).
The film is set in a colourful Burkina Faso village dotted with termite mounds, and a mosque made from clay that resembles a gigantic hedgehog. The village is a symbol of green Africa, a time capsule that nonetheless is not immune to the influences of the outside and ‘modern’ world.