Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams : Plot, Cast Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams

1973 film by Gilbert Cates

Joanne Woodward
Martin Balsam
Sylvia Sidney

CinematographyGerald HirschfeldEdited bySidney KatzMusic byJohnny Mandel

Production
company

Rastar

Distributed byColumbia Pictures

Release date

October 21, 1973 (1973-10-21)

Running time

93 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglish

Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams is a 1973 American Technicolor drama film directed by Gilbert Cates and written by Stewart Stern, starring Joanne Woodward, Martin Balsam, and Sylvia Sidney. It tells the story of a New York City housewife who rethinks her relationships with her husband, her children, and her mother.

Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams garnered two nominations at the 46th Academy Awards – Best Actress (Woodward) and Best Supporting Actress (Sidney).

Plot

Rita Walden is a depressed, middle-aged New Yorker. Always tired, Rita is prone to nightmares, and when she does dream more pleasant thoughts, they are of her childhood on the family farm. In her mind, she settled for second best when she married her ophthalmologist husband, Harry, as she still thinks about what life would have been like with the older farm boy on whom she had a crush at age 12½. She is constantly bickering with her mother, her sister Betty, and her grown-up daughter Anna, who has issues of her own. Rita is estranged from her son Bobby; she is in denial about his homosexual orientation. After Rita's mother dies suddenly, Rita is on the verge of a nervous breakdown in dealing with her mother's estate, especially when the family talks about selling her beloved farm, which she still intends to pass on to Bobby. Harry thinks that a European vacation would help Rita clear her mind, with the possibility of visiting Bobby, who is currently living in Amsterdam. Although Rita faces some crises on the trip, many of her conflicts do ease after she sees Harry revisit Bastogne for the first time since his days in World War II.