AJ Manglehorn is an aging, ordinary guy in a small town. He nurses his sick cat, squeezes out a conversation with the local bank teller every Friday, and eats at the same place every day. But there is more to Manglehorn than meets the eye: he’s an ex-con who, 40 years ago, gave up the woman of his dreams for a big ‘job’. After a dramatic effort to start over, Manglehorn faces a terrifying moment and is unmasked as a guy with a very, very dark past.
A young woman joins the military to be part of something bigger than herself and her small-town roots. Instead, she ends up as a new guard at Guantanamo Bay, where her mission is far from black and white. Surrounded by hostile jihadists and aggressive squadmates, she strikes up an unusual friendship with one of the detainees.
Fred Figglehorn is in love with Judy, who lives next door. But Kevin, the local bully, prevents Fred from seeing Judy until she moves out of town. So, Fred embarks on a quest to find her in the hope that his feelings will be reciprocated.
Luke and Brie are indeed, on a first date. At turns exhilarating and frustrating, the night will take them from a dive bar to a house party to the streets of Highland Park. Throughout the evening, earnest Luke does his best to defend his big night from a who’s who of interlopers as he tries to decipher what he views as the many mixed signals from gregarious Brie. As the pair’s developing relationship inches from flirtation towards something more substantive, the evening’s myriad distractions will melt away leaving only snowballing misunderstandings mixed with electric moments of connection, each with the potential to be either the igniting spark or the crushing end of their young relationship.