the prince of tides

Director: barbra streisand

Actor: barbra streisand,nick nolte,blythe danner,kate nelligan

Data Published: Wed Dec 25 1991

Genres: Drama,Romance

Key Words: new york,south carolina,psychiatrist,new york city,haunted by the past

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102713/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince_of_Tides

Description: The Prince of Tides is a movie starring Barbra Streisand, Nick Nolte, and Blythe Danner. A troubled man talks to his suicidal sister's psychiatrist about their family history and falls in love with her in the process.

Plot: Tom Wingo, a teacher and football coach from South Carolina, is asked by his mother, Lila, to travel to New York City to help his twin sister's psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein, after his sister Savannah's latest suicide attempt. Tom hates New York but reluctantly accepts, largely to take the opportunity to be alone and away from a life that does not satisfy him. During his initial meetings with Lowenstein, Tom is reluctant to disclose many details of their dysfunctional family's secrets. In flashbacks, Tom relates incidents from his childhood to Lowenstein in hopes of discovering how to save Savannah's life. The Wingo parents were an abusive father and an overly proud, status-hungry mother. The father was a shrimp boat operator and, despite being successful at that profession, spent all of his money on frivolous business pursuits, leaving the family in poverty. Tom is also torn with his own problems but hides behind what he calls "the Southern way"; i.e., laughing about everything. For example, his wife Sallie is having an affair, and her lover wants to marry her. Tom and Lowenstein begin having feelings for each other. After Tom discovers that she is married to Herbert Woodruff, a famous concert violinist, Lowenstein introduces Tom to her son Bernard, who is being groomed to become a musician as well but who secretly wants to play football. Tom starts coaching Bernard along with attending sessions with Lowenstein to help his sister. Tom discovers that Savannah has been in such a dissociated state that she even had a different identity, Renata Halpern. As Halpern, she wrote books to disguise the Savannah side of her troubled life. Tom confronts Lowenstein over not revealing this information before, and they argue, during which she throws a dictionary at him. To apologize, she asks him to dinner, and their relationship becomes closer. Tom has a fateful meeting with his mother and stepfather, bringing up painful memories. Tom reveals that, when he was 13 years old, three escaped convicts invaded his home and raped him, his mother, and his sister. His older brother, Luke, killed two of the aggressors with a shotgun, while his mother stabbed the third with a kitchen knife. They buried the bodies beneath the house and never spoke of it again. Tom suffers a mental breakdown, having now let loose a key piece of Savannah's troubled life. After a session of football, Herbert orders Bernard to return to his music lessons and to prepare to leave for Tanglewood, a prestigious music academy. Tom is invited to a dinner at Lowenstein's home, along with poets and intellectuals. Herbert is overtly rude and reveals that Tom's sister is in therapy with his wife. Infuriated, Lowenstein voices her suspicions about her husband's affairs. Tom takes Herbert's "million dollar" violin and threatens to throw it off the high-rise balcony unless Herbert apologizes. Tom throws the violin in the air, Herbert nervously apologizes, and Tom catches the violin before it falls. Tom spends a romantic weekend with Lowenstein at her country house. Savannah recovers and is released from the hospital. This recovery is due to finally learning about things she has repressed from her childhood, most notably the rapes. Her first suicide attempt at age 13 was after the rapes and murders of the three convicts. Tom then receives a call from his wife who has finally decided she wants him back. He loves Lowenstein and his wife both, but "has loved his wife longer, not more", he tells Lowenstein. He returns home, not being a man to abandon his wife and three daughters, wishing that two lives could be given to each man and woman. He's happy in his renewed life, after finally working out the traumatic events in his past, thanks to Lowenstein, but thinks of her daily as he reaches the top of the bridge on his drive home from work. Her name comes to him as a kind of prayer, a blessing.