The Prince of Tides (1991) remains my all-time favorite film.
The themes presented in the movie are so universal, and the characters (both main & supporting) are so full, that watching this film is almost like having a conversation with someone who has known you for your whole life.
Indeed, writer Pat Conroy himself admitted that he doesn't write novels, but rather conversation.
The writing in "Prince of Tides" is nothing short of exquisite.
Conroy's famous adage that every person has the right to be beautiful rings true (and is brilliantly portrayed) throughout this film. The main character/narrator (Nick Nolte) is flawed in the most satisfyingly humane way possible.
The main male character in this story is Tom Wingo, a South Carolina high school teacher. We find out early on in the movie that Tom's little sister Savannah committed suicide several years ago and since then Tom has learned to speak with dolphins. He carries around a picture of her everywhere and cherishes it.
Tom's mother, whom is already an incredibly complicated woman, is dying of cancer and the pressure of this is crushing Tom's father, Luke (one of my all-time favorite movie villains). It becomes clear very quickly that Luke was abusive to both his children and also had some less than honorable intentions towards Savannah before she died.
Tom's father eventually commits suicide and it is revealed that he was molesting Savannah. This sets off a series of events that ultimately takes Tom to visit his unruly twin sister in New York City where she has been living with the guilt of knowing what her brother did for her after she hung herself (he basically cradled her corpse until the cops came).
After a short stay in New York, Tom moves to New Jersey and gets a job teaching at an all-boys private school. He meets another teacher there named Lowenstein (Barbara Streisand) who takes him on as her project/student and helps him get his GED. Tom also meets some of the students, including a kid named Luke (who is very obviously his dead brother's kid).
Tom also meets and starts to date the school nurse, Susan Lowenstein (Kate Nelligan), who is still hung up on her ex-husband. Eventually Tom must confront his past when he discovers that one of the students at the school was molested just like Savannah was.
Thoughts
The film focuses mainly on the way that life is constant cyclic motion, no matter how much we want to stop it and try to figure out what just happened; or if we can somehow change what has already happened. The "Prince of Tides" tells us that one cannot go back with any sense of finality to a certain point in their past and change the things that they wanted to. The past is "water under a bridge" as Tom's father was fond of saying.
In the end, what we do have control over is our current reality and how we choose to live from this moment on. Likewise, future consequences are accountable only for those living now, and no one else. No matter how much we try to pin the responsibility (or blame) on someone or something else for our actions and choices, we ultimately make those choices ourselves and they are ours alone to live with.