Life in a Fishbowl is about three people whose lives are intertwined. After a horrible tragedy, a writer drinks himself into oblivion on a 20-year binge. A young single mom moonlights as a prostitute to make ends meet. A former soccer star is recruited into the snake pit of international banking and loses touch with his family.

A hit at the domestic box office, Icelandic director Baldvin Zophoníasson's intriguing, multiple-narrative drama follows three people — a struggling single mother, a former athlete trying to scale the corporate ladder, and a once-acclaimed author turned full-time drunk — whose lives intersect in surprising ways.

While glimmers of hope do emerge as his film progresses, Zophoniasson is also painfully aware that knowledge is hard-won and harder to apply: even when offered a second chance, his characters seem doomed to make the same mistakes. One of the country's most successful domestic hits in recent memory, Life in a Fishbowl is rightly assuming its status as one of the key Icelandic films of the decade.