After a tragic loss of both parents, 11-year-old Tim Hart is forced to live with his immensely immature Uncle Max, a second rate magician. and who, with the help of his nephew, tries to cultivate his last hand at love.
Sixteen-year-old Joanna has been living with her overbearing Aunt Martha in a low-income NYC tenement building ever since a violent outburst left her fighting a feeling she can only describe as the "darkness." Little did she know that weeks after moving in, a biological threat from the Soviet Union would leave the building boarded up and the tenants locked inside. It's been one month since they were first sequestered. With food dwindling and Martha's controversial role as leader expanding, Joanna realizes that she must face both her darkness and her aunt in order to save the tenants. But can she take on the leadership without letting the darkness take over her entirely?
Mia, an aspiring actress, serves lattes to movie stars in between auditions and Sebastian, a jazz musician, scrapes by playing cocktail party gigs in dingy bars, but as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other threaten to rip them apart.