While dining out with friends, Sy suggests the difficulty of separating comedy from tragedy. To illustrate his point, he tells his guests two parallel stories about Melinda ; both versions have the same basic elements, but one take on her state of affairs leans toward levity, while the other is full of anguish. Each story involves Melinda coping with a recent divorce through substance abuse while beginning a romantic relationship with a close friend's husband.

The Party (1980)
A thirteen-year-old French girl deals with moving to a new city and school in Paris, while at the same time her parents are getting a divorce.

The Party 2 (1982)
A young French teenage girl after moving to a new city falls in love with a boy and is thinking of having sex with him because her girlfriends have already done it.

Boys Don't Cry (1999)
A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.

High Fidelity (2000)
After his long-time girlfriend dumps him, a thirty-year-old record store owner seeks to understand why he is unlucky in love while recounting his "top five breakups of all time".

Bed and Board (1970)
Parisian everyman Antoine Doinel has married his sweetheart Christine Darbon, and the newlyweds have set up a cozy domestic life of selling flowers and giving violin lessons while Antoine fitfully works on his long-gestating novel. As Christine becomes pregnant with the couple's first child, Antoine finds himself enraptured with a young Japanese beauty. The complications change the course of their relationship forever.

Brazil (1985)
Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

In My Dreams (2015)
Natalie and Nick are frustrated with their luck in romance. After tossing coins into a fountain, the two then begin dreaming about each other. But, according to fountain mythology, they only have a week to turn those dreams into reality.

Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Fast-talking, quick-thinking Detroit street cop Axel Foley has bent more than a few rules and regs in his time, but when his best friend is murdered, he heads to sunny Beverly Hills to work the case like only he can.

Romeo + Juliet (1996)
In director Baz Luhrmann's contemporary take on William Shakespeare's classic tragedy, the Montagues and Capulets have moved their ongoing feud to the sweltering suburb of Verona Beach, where Romeo and Juliet fall in love and secretly wed. Though the film is visually modern, the bard's dialogue remains.

The Hole (2001)
Four teenagers at a British private school secretly uncover and explore the depths of a sealed underground hole created decades ago as a possible bomb shelter.

7 Virgins (2005)
Tano is 16-years-old and is already sitting in jail. In 48 hours he’s a free man and off to the wedding of his brother. In the two days he recounts his neighborhood in a section of Sevilla.

Notting Hill (1999)
London bookstore owner William Thacker's quiet life turns upside down when a chance encounter with famous actress Anna Scott sparks an unlikely romance challenged by their vastly different worlds.

The Blues Brothers (1980)
Jake Blues, just released from prison, puts his old band back together to save the Catholic home where he and his brother Elwood were raised.

The White Sound (2001)
Lukas, a young schizophrenic man, has to deal with a new town, a new relationship, and the paranoia in his head.

The Edukators (2004)
Three activists cobble together a kidnapping plot after they encounter a businessman in his home.

The Science of Sleep (2006)
A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is lovestruck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
A history professor and his wife entertain a young couple who are new to the university's faculty. As the drinks flow, secrets come to light, and the middle-aged couple unload onto their guests the full force of the bitterness, dysfunction, and animosity that defines their marriage.

Gerry (2002)
Two friends named Gerry become lost in the desert after taking a wrong turn. Their attempts to find their way home only lead them into further trouble.