Director: Michael Guinzburg.
Travis is crazy in love with Nina, a beautiful Russian actress. He’s almost got it all -- he lives with his grandfather Bruce on a gorgeous Malibu estate above the crashing Pacific and has just completed a short film of great mystical beauty. But instead of confident and joyful, Travis is depressed and alcoholic. His mother, the movie star Irene Del Mar, is visiting from New York with her younger boyfriend, the film director Trigger. The screening of Travis’ film in front of family and friends is a disaster: Irene interrupts the film and Travis storms off. At the party afterward, Nina meets Trigger -- sparks. Travis becomes more despondent and neurotic. Moping on the beach, he throws a rock and kills a seagull. Like a crazy man, he presents the dead bird to Nina. The gift does not please her, and when Travis witnesses Trigger and Nina kissing he loses it and grabs a gun. Boom! Thankfully it is just a flesh wound but Nina is freaked and runs off with Trigger. Two years later, Trigger dumps Nina and goes back to Irene. Nina becomes a drug addict and Travis, whose film ironically has become a great success, rescues Nina from a dive bar in Texas and gets her into a Malibu rehab. Grandpa Bruce has a stroke and Irene and Trigger wing back to California to visit. Nina escapes rehab and returns to the estate for one final date with destiny. And yes, the gun is involved.  

Director: Dover Kosashvili.
The pivot point is an emotional and psychological triangle: a civil servant, Laevsky (Andrew Scott, appalling and appealing); his married mistress, Nadya (Fiona Glascott, a milky beauty); and a zoologist, Von Koren (Tobias Menzies, suitably rigid). The story gets going with Laevsky bitterly complaining about Nadya to an older friend, a doctor, Samoylenko (Niall Buggy). Laevsky claims to no longer care for Nadya, who, having left her husband, now inspires her lover’s contempt or, perhaps, fatigue. Like a caged animal, he wants out and claws at Samoylenko as Von Koren watches and seethes, stoking his loathing for Laevsky. For his part, by cutting to Nadya during Laevsky’s rant and capping the scene with a disapproving look from Von Koren, Mr. Kosashvili suggests that his own sympathies are divided.