Genre: Drama
Director: Mike Mills
Writer: Chad Taylor
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Naomi Watts, Patton Oswalt, Glenn Close, Billy Crudup, Cara Buono, Patrick Fischler, Maya Hawke
Plot: On Wednesday, Eddie (Ethan Hawke) lies in bed, staring deep into the ceiling. After distant shouting in the background gets louder, his daughter Paige (Maya Hawke) knocks and opens the door – Eddie quickly closing his eyes and opening them again, as if she just woke him up. She tells him to hurry up and get ready as today’s the day and they’re already running late.
Eddie is going on year 48, in the same town he was born in which is the same town his parents were born in. Although he has had the same steady job for the last twenty years, single parenthood to his daughter Paige has meant he has never been in a super secure financial situation. Today, he and Paige drive 4 hours so he can help her move in to her dorm for her freshman year of college.
On the four-hour drive back home, Eddie contemplates his new situation. Both of his parents have passed away in the last year and his daughter is now entering adulthood – he’s in an empty nest and with no partner at that. Adding weight to this life reflection is his 30th high school reunion quickly approaching this weekend – although as a stoner in high school, he’s never felt the need to go to one of these reunions. On the radio, he hears a story about a pair of former high school sweethearts who, now in their 50s, both divorced their spouses and married each other. Eddie is fascinated by this.
On Thursday, Eddie is tired from the day before and his mind is clearly on other things at work. On his work computer, he reads more about the couple that he learned about last night. He stalks their social media pages and sees the clear demarcation between their pictures with their ex-spouses and them together. He then looks up “Donna Greenspan” but after going through some of the results, he can’t find what he is looking for. He receives a call from Albert, his best friend in high school, who says he is getting into town tonight and they should grab dinner.
During their dinner, Eddie and Albert (Patton Oswalt) shoot the shit but also lament growing old. Eddie prefaces his next statement by emphasizing he is not crazy, he then brings up how he has always felt like Donna, his high school sweetheart, is the one that got away. He then tells Albert about the couple he read about and says he wants to make a play for Donna during this weekend. Albert, being Eddie’s good friend, is receptive to the idea and asks why they broke up in the first place. Eddie mumbles a nonsensical answer. Albert says she ended up marrying Troy Phibbs – star quarterback/douchebag from the rival high school – and moving to another state. Eddie says that, with this information, he’s wiling to bet she is unhappy and his swing for the fences might work. He asks if the third member of their high school friend group, Perry, will show up. Albert says he’s just like Eddie and never goes to these things, which makes Eddie feel bummed as he hasn’t seen him in years.
On Friday after work, Eddie goes to the local jeweler and asks to look at engagement rings. He is inquisitive towards the jeweler who answers his questions about some of the rings. On his way out, he runs into Beth (Cara Buono), his ex-wife and Paige’s mother. She asks what he is doing in there and he smiles and says he’s just coping with his mid-life crisis. He tells her about moving Paige in and she says she will be visiting her the following weekend. She comments that Eddie seems genuinely happy right now – the first time she has seen that side of him in years.
At the Homecoming football game that night (before the class reunion on Saturday), Eddie sees Donna (Naomi Watts) for the first time in years. Albert nudges him to go talk to her and Eddie does. Donna seems delighted to see him, but still in a cordial way. He asks if she is married and she says yes (which he already knew). Her husband will be arriving tomorrow for the actual reunion dinner. When she asks the same, he tells her he’s been a divorcee for 15 years and a single father that entire time. She empathizes with him and says her own marriage has made her feel a form of loneliness as of late. She says that’s not an indictment on her husband but just that people change over time and you have to learn to adjust to that change.
In sharing their mid-life woes, they give each other a slight smile. Eddie puts her hand on hers and she quickly pulls away and asks what he is doing. He struggles to get an answer before telling her about the story of the couple and how had always dreamt of something like that happening with them. When she talked about her sense of loneliness – she cuts him off there. She tells him that she is happily married and committed to her husband until the end. When Eddie gets back to his seats, Albert tells him some unfortunate news he overheard – Donna’s husband was diagnosed with ALS the year before and his life expectancy is shrinking. Albert then asks if Eddie made a move on Donna as planed and he sits in silence, heavily breathing.
On Saturday, Eddie dreads going to the reunion after the incident the night before. After Albert’s pleads, Eddie decides it would be best to go and apologize to Donna. Before Donna and her husband even arrive, Eddie is shocked to see that Perry (Patrick Fischler) has actually arrived this time and with his new girlfriend – Ms. Callihan (Glenn Close). She was their math teacher in high school but mysteriously left midway through senior year. While everyone is socializing, Eddie makes minimal small talk with Perry and Glenn. Albert asks why he was so awkward around them and Eddie doesn’t want to talk about it.
When Donna and Troy (Billy Crudup) arrive, guilt pours over Eddie as he sees Troy much frailer than the jock stature he possessed in high school. Eddie is one of the first people to greet Donna and Troy. Eddie asks if they can talk in private but she shoots him down. Moments later, before a slideshow is about to begin and speeches given, Eddie takes over the microphone. Albert is in the audience telling him to leave the stage but he stays up there. He gives a speech about the strange feelings one is overcome with at a reunion – the reflection on fond memories and the resurrection of bad ones. For him, it is moreso the latter and he’d like to use this opportunity to atone for some of his mistakes.
He says he wants to apologize to Donna for the harsh dissolution of their relationship back in senior year and that he is happy that she is now in a committed relationship. Event organizers start to grow uncomfortable but let him talk. He then says that he originally broke her heart because he was involved in an inappropriate relationship that scarred him. He is cut off by the organizers who are embarrassed and apologize. Eddie walks off, distraught, and out into the hallway.
On his way to exit the building, Donna chases him down. She tells him to finish his story but he refuses. She puts her hand on his (just as he had at the football game) and pleads with him. He stops at their old lockers, where they first met, and slides down against it to a sitting position. He was in a relationship with Ms. Callihan. He had grown to be a favorite student of hers and she took the initiative to add extra incentives to their bond. He was obviously dating Donna at the time and he apologizes to her for the infidelity. She says she doesn’t care about that now as he was clearly taken advantage of that. She asks why he broke off things so hard with her. He says that the day everyone learned Ms. Callihan had left the school, he found out like everyone else and was confused and shell-shocked. And he didn’t know how to cope with all of those emotions at once.
Donna is near fuming mad while Eddie is on the verge of tears. He says he knew what he was getting himself into and even thought it was cool at the time but Donna tells him that he was still a child and he’d been taken advantage of. He says this experience has stuck with him the rest of his life and made him unable to stay in a long-term committed relationship. And that is why he never went to any reunions or events involving their former high school because he didn’t want to risk running into her and reliving that part of his life. Donna comforts him and says she is going to go scold Ms. Callihan right now but he stops her. He apologizes for the night before and says he picked up the wrong cues. She says she has never lost the love she had for him but she is also fully committed to adjusting to her marriage as it goes through the unforeseen hardship that illness has brought upon it.
Their conversation is interrupted as footsteps are heard down the hallway. It is Ms. Callihan. She says she was looking for him. As Donna is about to speak, Eddie tells her to stop and asks for a moment of privacy. She squeezes his hand on the way out. Ms. Callihan says she has wanted to talk to Eddie since she left but never found the strength. He doesn’t seem to listen to anything she says and just asks if what they did was wrong. Before she can answer, he says he was 17 and she was 37. She says he knows what they had was real. When he asks why she left, there is a lingering silence. She says if they would have been caught her career and life would have been ruined. He says there was no indication that they would not have been caught and then asks what her plan for him was once he graduated. Again there is a lingering silence before saying there was something else, the real reason they might have been caught. She was pregnant.
Eddie looks shocked and can’t get a word out from his mouth. In that time, she pulls out a picture from her purse of a 15 year-old boy. She says his name was Phillip, after her dad. He had the greatest laugh and was so artistically inclined. Eddie’s shock transitions into confusion and he asks why she is talking in the past tense. She says he died in a car accident 15 years ago. Tears stroll down Eddie’s face as he begins heavily breathing again. Instead of asking about Phillip or why she never told him, he calmly asks why she came here with Perry. Before she can answer, he says that she has come here to haunt him. She says that what she and Perry have is real but he dismisses this and says she used him to see Eddie again. She is shaking and does not know what to say and he says that he is done letting her ruin his life. Never again.
He storms back into the auditorium and hugs Donna, telling her once again he is sorry. He then shakes Troy’s hand and tells him he will be in his thoughts regarding his journey going forward. He tells Albert and Perry that it was nice to see them and leaves the reunion.
On Sunday, Eddie lies in bed, staring deep into the ceiling. His arm meanders over to his phone and he calls Paige. When she asks what’s up, he says he just wanted to check in and see how her first weekend on campus went.
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