18-year old Brooklynite Annie McGairy has moved to the Midwest to marry her law-student love Carl Brown. The couple must overcome many obstacles including disapproval from their parents, who knew each other before emigrating to America from Ireland, financial problems, and Annie’s sexual insecurities. These problems are all compounded when Annie discovers she is pregnant.
After a heated argument, Annie leaves Carl and returns to Brooklyn to live with her mother. She doesn’t tell Carl she is pregnant because she doesn’t want to burden him while he’s working on his education.
Ultimately, Annie realizes that her family should be together, and Carl forgives her for leaving him because he believes that his child deserves happiness. The couple embrace at the train station and vow to stay together.
It was spring break when Andrew and I met in Florida. I was living and singing around Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. I had been working and living in the home of Ellen Burstyn. The Oscar winning actress for the film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” for over 3 years. From her example, she had helped me in many ways, from studying at the Actors Studio to the way I would learn for the rest of my life.
Andrew was in his sophomore year of his first college degree, at the University of Florida in Gainesville, and home for Christmas break. It was 1981. We met at the Marlin Beach Hotel; the hotel where the 1960 film “Where the Boys Are” was filmed and starred George Hamiltion, Dolores Hart, Paula Prentiss, Connie Francis, Yvette Mimieux , Jim Hutton, and Frank Gorshin. Because of that film, the Marlin was a safe place for gay men and women to meet. It had become a hotel catering to gays and lesbians. We took our time and on the last night of his break, we went out for ice cream. When we came out of the ice cream shop with our cones, getting ready to get in the car, we looked across the car top where our eyes met and our souls opened up to each other and we have never been apart since. Love is a powerful thing.
Tommaso Cantone left his hometown in Salento, Southern Italy, because of its narrow-minded inhabitants, and for some time he has resided in Rome with his boyfriend Marco. In fact, in the big city, he was able to create his own independence and live in the light of the sun his homosexuality. After a long time, determined to reveal his sexual orientation to his family, he returns to his homeland, where he comes to confront his middle-class parents, and a mentally different society. The Cantone are a large and bizarre family, known in Lecce for being the owner of a large industrial pasta factory. Tommaso will have to face his severe and hard father Vincenzo, his suffocating mother Stefania, his elder brother Antonio, whom his father would like to be joined by Tommaso in the management of the pasta factory, and his sister Elena, who aspires to a better life than that of a housewife. His eccentric aunt Luciana and his grandmother are also part of the numerous clan of the Cantone.
Once back in Lecce, Tommaso comes out to his brother Antonio, who is not particularly disturbed by the revelation; however, on the evening in which Tommaso would like to reveal himself to his entire family, Antonio is the first to speak and to come out as gay himself: feeling the responsibility to carry on the family name, the man had always hidden himself, but in seeing the coming out of his brother his final sentence he had decided to do it first. In fact, the consequences of that gesture are tragic: Vincenzo kicks Antonio out of the house shortly before having a heart attack; the whole family feels targeted by the slander and gossip of the town, while Tommaso has the whole responsibility of the pasta factory. Tommaso also lied about his university career: he has in fact declared that he had enrolled in economics and commerce, while in reality he’s close to a degree in literature and his dream is to become a writer. In this, however, he finds an unexpected ally in Alba Brunetti, daughter of Vincenzo’s work partner and brilliant economist, with whom Tommaso establishes an ambiguous friendship.
While the family tries to adapt to the sudden change, Tommaso feels more and more inadequate in his new responsibilities, which also leads him to neglect his boyfriend Marco and not to be able to return to Rome as he would have liked. After a very tense confrontation with his brother, in which each of the two accuses the other of each other faults, the daily life of the Cantone is upset by the arrival of Marco together with his friends Davide, Andrea and Massimiliano: believing them to be heterosexual, Tommaso’s parents welcome them in his own house, against Tommaso’s wishes. Soon the extravagance of the three friends makes the family suspicious, confirming some clues about him being gay. Meanwhile, Marco accuses his boyfriend of not being able to deal with his parents, and their relationship becomes very tense. Only shortly before departure the two manage to clarify the things between them; once Marco and his friends are gone, Tommaso finally finds the courage to face his parents and declare that the life they have chosen for him is not the one he wants to live.
That same evening, the grandmother puts in place an extreme plan to resolve the situation: despite suffering from diabetes mellitus, she decides to eat a huge amount of sweets that leads her to her death. Since she is the largest shareholder of the pasta factory, she in her last will leaves it to Antonio, who will thus have to return to the family, and she recommends each member of the family to be himself and to respect the diversity of others. During her funeral, past and present come together in an almost dreamlike scene: the grandmother finds her beloved Nicola, her husband’s brother and her only true love; Vincenzo and Antonio seem to make peace, while Tommaso watches Marco and Alba dance and, after hinting at a smile, leaves.
