A dog finds the meaning of his own existence through the lives of the humans he meets.

Clara and her two sons escape from her abusive husband with little more than their car and plan to start over in New York. After the car towed away, the family meets Alice, who gets them into an emergency shelter. While stealing food at a Russian restaurant called ‘Winter Palace’, Clara meets Marc, who has been given the chance to help the old eatery regain its former glory. The ‘Winter Palace’ soon becomes a place of unexpected encounters between people who are all undergoing some sort of crisis and whom fate has now brought together.

Told through memory and metaphor, Utopians is a dark and subtly comic character study of three people on the edge: of society, of control, and of collapse. Roger is a yoga teacher. His daughter Zoe returns home from the military and to Rogers dismay resumes her relationship with her allegedly schizophrenic girlfriend Maya. Opposed to Zoe's pursuit of Maya but eager to be a part of his daughters life, Roger becomes entangled in the ups and downs of their relationship. Increasingly late and obviously distracted during his yoga classes, his few remaining students begin to lose patience. When Rogers well-meaning friend Morris offers them a live-in renovation job in an upscale Brooklyn home, the three of them move in and start a job they are not exactly qualified for. Living rent-free provides them with a respite from the responsibilities and expectations of the outside world. Together they try to find comfort in their new reality while being revisited by their troubled pasts.