Rescued from a mugging attempt by two Syrian refugees, Greek college student Daphne (Niki Vakali) enters into a secret relationships with her rescuer, another another Syrian refugee named Farris (Tawfeek Barhom, A BORROWED IDENTITY). She reconsiders her own malaise being "trapped" in economically-depressed Greece from the perspective of those fleeing a civil war at home into unwelcoming arms, unaware that her own embittered father Antonis (Minas Hatzisavvas, LIFE ON SALE) is part of a fascist group running raids on refugee camps. Suffering from depression from the stress of his job and trying to keep his family together, Giorgos (Christopher Papakaliatis, WHAT IF...) has a one-night stand with Swedish businesswoman Elise (Andrea Osvárt, AFTERSHOCK) only to meet her again as the efficiency expert gutting his department for a foreign buyout. Continuing the self-destructive career at the risk of his marriage and the job safety of his coworkers, Giorgos finds himself having to chose between personal happiness and responsibility after a workplace tragedy. German teacher of Ancient Greek Sebastian (J.K. Simmons, WHIPLASH) has enjoyed his yearly vacations in Greece and finally decides to move there upon retiring. He strikes up an uneasy friendship at a grocery store with unhappy housewife Maria (Maria Kavoyianni) who is at first less interested in everything the rest of the world owes to Greek culture than all they have taken. Communicating in broken English, Sebastian and Maria bond as they respectively try to teach each other modern Greek and English (the latter in the form of a novel "Second Chance"); Maria, however, must determine whether there is anything salvageable in her own marriage before deciding whether she is worthy of another chance at happiness.

From the casting of recent Oscar winner Simmons to "local color" cultural displays, the socially-relevant political backdrop, and rooting the theme of the universality of love in the Greek myth of Eros and Soul (Psyche), the Greek box-office success WORLDS APART is calculated in the extreme as a candidate for best foreign film category awards. What saves the film from being an exercise in cinematic self-importance for writer/director/star Papakaliatis are a handful of good performances that allow the viewer for moments at a time to lose themselves in the narratively- and stylistically-clichéd depictions of the idea of true love. Just as Papakaliatis feels the need to underline a scene of his conflicted lover morosely nursing a cigarette in an empty bar with Billie Holiday's "I'm a Fool to Want You", he also knocks the viewer over the head with the damage wrought by the country's cruel austerity measures with audio from a news report over a montage of Giorgo's devastated coworkers receiving their termination notices via email; on the other hand, the film does work up a head of steam tearing into the shameful reasons behind the rise of anti-immigrant fascist groups that is crowd-pleasing but also well-earned. Ultimately, the film is more content to just posit the universality of love as a saving grace rather than more seriously examine the issues the film brings up to use as a divisive force for its foregrounded love stories.