The Story:
In the sun-drenched suburbs of Connecticut, Ned Merrill (Burt Lancaster), a charismatic advertising executive, emerges from the woods in nothing but a swimsuit and hatches a whimsical plan to swim home eight miles through his affluent neighbors’ backyard pools, dubbing the watery trail the “Lucinda River” in honor of his wife, embarking on what he believes is a triumphant aquatic odyssey.
As Ned dives from pool to pool, his buoyant spirits clash with harsh revelations from old acquaintances: a young former babysitter rebuffs his advances, a nudist couple hints at his financial downfall, and his ex-mistress (Janice Rule) cruelly exposes their affair as one-sided delusion, while the idyllic summer sky darkens to autumnal storms, mirroring the unraveling of his fabricated life of wealth and status.
Prepare for a haunting descent into suburban illusion in this surreal psychological drama, where every splash uncovers buried truths, leaving Ned—and the audience—shivering in the rain before the locked gates of a dream turned nightmare.
