Juuso, Late, and Pyry return from military service to their small village in the Finnish countryside. Finding work is difficult there, so Juuso decides to take a job on a Norwegian oil drilling platform. Late could start working on his family's chicken farm but wants to break free from his father who has a new wife. Looking for work in Gothenburg, Sweden, he only runs into more problems and is deported back to Finland. Pyry would like to take over his late father's farm but family quarrels over the estate make him quit his agricultural studies and, together with drifter Late, take a job in a steel mill in southern Finland.

Jill and Joy (both 9) live in their own house like any other little girls, except that they might be a little happier than most little girls, as they get to live in their own house specifically designed for the two. One December evening a small car, barely the size of a shoebox, pulls up in front their house, and a teensy-weensy family gets out; it's the McTiny family. The family has become homeless after a road roller smashed their home. Planning to live with the girls temporarily, the family moves in with Jill and Joy but soon finds out that not all big people have good intentions towards them. Jill and Joy's Winter is based on a beloved book by the same name, written by a Finnish writer named Marjatta Kurenniemi.

Seven stories of women. Occasionally intersecting with each other in everyday situations. Parallel episodes of hope and abandonment, addiction and infidelity, but also friendship and trust.

A week-long glimpse into the wretched existence of Ripa, a long-haired, hard-drinking lug. He is also a filmmaker-wannabee, whose last two projects were condemned for their sex and violence. A Parasite Deluxe, who barely recalls his previous night, Ripa cruises the bars and meets bank-teller Tiina.

Rousku and Raninen are fleeing their unemployment by setting up a construction company. Occupational illiteracy is not an obstacle and accounting is fine when Rouskun's mate deals with things. The entrepreneurs know that the poor can be, but not artificial. But what's the point for the scratchy women? Especially when Rousku gets to look in the mirror again and find out what kind of father, such a daughter.

Ida is a woman who was adopted to Finland from Africa as a child. Ida is an unemployed seamstress approaching her thirties and still lives at home with her activist mother Kati. Kati wants to fix her daughter's life and offers her a job at her work. Encouraged by her new friend Ville, Ida, however, sets out for Berlin in order to find a job and to prove to her mother that she can manage on her own. Meanwhile, Kati has been told that she is seriously ill, but she does not want to mention it to Ida in fear of standing in the way of her daughter's struggle for independence. Ida wants to have a life of her own, but what will she have left at the end of the day?