Trapped in a never-ending cycle of poverty, passion, abuse and compromise, 10-year-old Jonah and his boisterous older brothers, Manny and Joel, try to navigate through childhood and their parents' volatile relationship. And leading a hand-to-mouth existence, maltreated Ma struggles to balance her motherly love for her three boys with the agony and uncertainty of their future, while Paps is by turns gentle and violent. However, as Joel and Manny enter adolescence, eager to leave childhood behind, Jonah sees things with an artist's eye and tries to carve out his identity.—Nick Riganas