In the Christmas Eve in New York, the lives of different characters cross with others along the night. The lonely, divorced, childless, "over 40", editor Rose Harrison (Susan Sarandon) keeps trying to reconnect with her mother, interned in a hospital with Alzheimer. She feels sorry for her mother, for herself and for the lonely patient of the room in front of her mother's. She accept the courtship of a young and sexy collaborator, but in the end she refuse him. In the hospital she meets the visitor Charlie (Robin Williams). They spend the night toghter, trying to reach the new day’s dawn. Meanwhile, the jealous cop Mike (Paul Walker) assaults the gay tree-decorator friend of his girlfriend Nina Vasquez (Penélope Cruz), pushing her to breaks the engagement with her beloved fiancé due to his suffocating jealousy, but they’re missing each others. Nina meets Rose, and spend an evening with her in a bar, talking about each others’s problems. Mike is stalked by the stranger bartender Artie Venzuela (Alan Arkin) who seems to know him well. Artie thinks that Mike is the reincarnation of his wife. After a meet with Mike, Artie has an heat attack. In the hospital Mike meets Aetie’s son Paul, and discover the truth about Artie’s wife, she ran away and was killed in a car crash the night Artie killed a man in a jealous rage.The poor Jules (Marcus Thomas) is a young man who deliberately ask to the criminal Arizona (Chazz Palminteri) to broke his hand,  so he can attend to the  Christmas party in the hospital, where he spent the best Christmas of his life when he was a teenager.

Was released into a 48-hour trial DVD after its theatrical release.

Throughout shooting the film on location in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Susan Sarandon would catch a 45-minute flight from New York City (where she lives) to Toronto. One return flight from Toronto turned into a reported 14+ hour ordeal due to a blizzard that shutdown most of the East Coast.