| Director | Joseph Greco |
|---|---|
| Genre | drama film |
| Runtime | 101 min |
| Country | United States |
| Budget | $1.5 million |
Eleven-year-old Chris Marino returns home after a brief stay with relatives, prompted by his mother Mary's worsening schizophrenia. At home, Mary's delusions and paranoia draw neighborhood scorn and repeated police visits. Her condition culminates in a violent episode in which she grabs a knife; Chris intervenes and is accidentally cut on the arm, after which officers Baker Act her and she is institutionalized. Chris is left in the care of his father, John, who begins building a sailboat in the family driveway as a personal project.
While Mary receives treatment, John visits her regularly, bringing art supplies and inquiring about experimental medications not yet released. He also cautiously raises with Chris the possibility of sending him to stay with Aunt Joanne in Alaska until things stabilize. Meanwhile, mounting medical bills strain the household. When John asks his longtime boss and friend Hector for a long-promised raise, he is repeatedly put off. Hector later visits, mocks the half-built boat as foolish, and eventually fires John amid the company's financial difficulties. City officials, responding to a neighbor's complaint, forbid construction in the driveway, forcing John to relocate the boat to the backyard; the neighbor then erects a fence along the property line. An elderly marina owner later donates old sails and a good-luck charm for the bow.
At school, Chris copes by customizing T-shirts after classmates admire a patch sewn by his mother. He begins taking orders from fellow students and forms a tentative friendship—and budding romance—with classmate Dawn, who gives him an old shirt to personalize. Increasingly isolated, Chris skips classes to fish alone at the beach.
A supervised Thanksgiving outing with Mary ends in public embarrassment when the restaurant runs out of pumpkin pie, John confronts the staff, and Mary becomes agitated. On a later permitted home visit for Chris's birthday, Mary impulsively drives John's truck to the roller rink where Chris is celebrating with friends, arriving unannounced with a homemade cake, party hats, and noisemakers. Mortified by the disruption in front of his peers, Chris lashes out at her, telling her to leave. The two later reconcile privately at home, where Mary acknowledges her illness plainly but expresses belief that it is treatable.
Resentment builds between father and son over the boat's demands on John's attention. The tension erupts after Hector's son taunts Chris about his mother's institutionalization; Chris fights back and is suspended. John reprimands him harshly at home. In response, Chris damages the boat and threatens to call Aunt Joanne and leave permanently. John confronts him honestly, admitting he misses the woman Mary once was and shares his son's pain. They reach a fragile understanding. Shortly after, Hector comes to the house and fires John, citing lost business and the struggling economy. John does not raise his voice, responding instead with a quiet accounting of his twenty years of service, the raise that was never given, and the medical bills that have gone unpaid. Hector leaves without a word.
The next morning, Chris repairs the hull and proposes they finish the boat together. Over the following weeks they complete the vessel with help from friends. Mary's paintings are incorporated into the patched sails. To get it out of the enclosed backyard, John and Chris quietly dismantle and later reassemble the neighbor's fence under cover of night.
With the boat ready, Chris tells Dawn he may spend the summer in Alaska. Their understated farewell ends with a cheek kiss after she beats him in a bike race to the lighthouse. John receives word that Mary has been cleared for a weekend visit, but when they arrive to pick her up, she gently declines, insisting they enjoy the outing without her.
Father and son take the boat out together for the first time. On the water, John teaches Chris the basics and shares the story of how he met Mary at a sailing class years earlier—how he nearly capsized trying to impress her on their third date, and how she named Chris after Saint Christopher, patron saint of travelers. When Chris notes how beautiful she still is, John apologizes that she could not join them. Chris replies that someday she will. The question of Alaska remains gently open between them.
The film closes with all three Marinos aboard the boat together, the camera eventually revealing it is being towed slowly along a road outside the institution rather than sailing on open water, quietly fulfilling the hope Chris expressed moments earlier—as the family "sails" in place, going nowhere and everywhere at once.