Sweet Steel

An 11-year-old girl watches her father come down with a crippling depression. Over one summer, she learns answers to several mysteries and comes to terms with love and loss.

A man on the verge of a promotion takes a mysterious hallucinogenic drug that begins to tear down his reality and expose his life for what it really is.

In the present, artist Tom Warshaw recalls his traumatic coming of age. As a 13-year-old growing up in New York City in 1973, Tom hangs out with Pappass, a mentally disabled man. With Tom's mother battling depression after the death of her husband, the young boy is left to his own devices. When Tom develops a crush on schoolmate Melissa, Pappass feels abandoned and begins behaving erratically.

After completing military service, Walter Gulick takes a job as a sparring partner at a gym, the owner of which sees potential in Walter as a professional fighter—and takes him under his wing.

Roger Greenberg, a failed musician now making a living as a carpenter in New York, returns to Los Angeles to house-sit for his brother. He's stranded there—since he doesn't drive—until his brother's assistant, Florence, comes to his rescue. She's as much a lost soul as he is, and the pair form a significant connection—giving Roger a much-needed reason to be happy.

Several players from different backgrounds try to cope with the pressures of playing football at a major university. Each deals with the pressure differently, some turn to drinking, others to drugs, and some to studying.