Daddy Longlegs

Lenny, a divorced father and a Manhattan projectionist, begins two weeks of custody over Sage and Frey. He embraces a playful, impulsive approach while openly arguing with adults in front of the boys, including their school principal and a homeless veteran, often involving the kids in improvised games.

Early in the two weeks, Leni brings the boys a salamander as a gift. The creature is promptly forgotten and starves to death, setting a tone of neglect in the household.

On the first weekend, Lenny goes out drinking and sleeps with Roberta. When she reveals she is traveling upstate with her boyfriend the next morning, Lenny impulsively decides to accompany them, taking Sage and Frey along on the trip.

Back home, Lenny is visited by Salvie, a hard to understand European friend who plays a dangerous game that involves standing on the boys stomachs. The unsettling encounter underscores the reckless environment Lenny creates around the kids.

Lenny experiences a scheduling mix-up at his projectionist job. He swaps a reel and runs on foot to the school to fetch the kids, then brings them to the theater where they print 999 copies of a crude comic about Lenny peeing in his boss's water cup.

To date Leni, Lenny hires his neighbor Jake to watch the boys for an evening. The date ends badly when Leni walks along subway rails and Lenny refuses to join her.

Sage and Frey insert urine into a toy firetruck and spray Jake, who then vows he will no longer watch the kids.

Leni returns to make up with him just as he receives a call from his boss, who needs him to work overnight and threatens to fire him for the printer incident. To keep the kids from waking, Lenny administers sleeping pills, and the children slip into unconsciousness for two days.

Sage and Frey remain unconscious for the next two days as doctors diagnose their condition. Lenny avoids the apartment during this stressful time and leaves a spare key behind at Leni's place, where a nosy neighbor easily finds it.

Leni cuts contact with Lenny. The next night, Lenny goes out with friends but ends up getting arrested after indiscreetly spray-painting a wall.

Sage and Frey wake, and Lenny takes them to a park and then a museum to see a large-scale model of a mosquito; he jokes about having killed a giant mosquito in his apartment. The kids fear the recurring insect and can't sleep.

The next day, the boys return to their mother's custody. Left alone, Lenny becomes increasingly discontent, throwing public tantrums and repeatedly calling Leni, who does not answer.

After a surreal mosquito nightmare, Lenny abducts his sons from school, convincing their nanny that there was a scheduling mix-up. The move foreshadows further instability as the family is pulled into a new, uncertain living arrangement.

While cooking for the boys, Lenny sends them to the grocery store with a shopping list; upon their return they find all the furniture missing and learn they are moving, though the circumstances are unclear. They carry their belongings around on the sidewalk as movers shuffle them.

Moved to the edge by the movers, Lenny is kicked out onto the street. He and the boys carry their belongings around the sidewalk and finally load them onto a Roosevelt Island tram.