Grecian Yearn

Financially stable, Barbara, Margaret and Alexandra are staring at their 50s with massive regret vis-à-vis their problems with men. Travel and food journalist Barbara has had one man after another, even though one fellow has been there for years, waiting for her to commit. Margaret is a budding author in the shadow of her ex, the “great” novelist who uses her as his muse and savior in his personal escapades, including his two subsequent failed marriages. Alexandra is “frigid,” even though her husband tried diligently to wake her sexuality but eventually gave up. Their 28-year-old daughter, Susan, is stuck in an abusive marriage to a “puppet master” CEO. After Barbara’s accommodating fellow announces he’s no longer willing to wait for her, she reacts by grabbing a new travel assignment, this one to Greek islands. She persuades Margaret and Alexandra to accompany her. Two “stowaways” also come along: the dashing, 50-year old lawyer Tom, who’s secretly looking for a meal ticket, and the long-suffering Susan, whose mother Alexandra insists she go while her CEO husband is away on a business conference. On Corfu, Barbara tells the others of a trip to the ancient Greek temple on Barint she had taken two decades earlier and how it had changed her life. Intrigued, the other women abandon Tom for the day and go there with her. In the temple, each woman giggles as they pray separately at Apollo’s statue. Still giggling, they leave. A breath of wind passes through the olive trees by the temple. From inside the temple, a naked young man, a divine beauty, emerges. That evening, they meet the beguiling waiter Georgios. While everyone in the place (except the pouting Tom) wants to dance and drink with the waiter, Georgios focuses his calming attention on the four women. Later meeting them at a tavern, he announces they must change hotels as theirs has suddenly closed in humiliating bankruptcy. Accompanied by musicians with flutes and lyres, he leads them to a posh hotel on a cliff by the sea. In this idyllic setting, each woman confesses her secrets: Barbara has slept with each of the other’s husbands. Alexandra caused Susan’s long-ago love to abandon her and set up her marriage with the puppet master, Alexandra’s former lover. Margaret admits she knew not only of her husband’s infidelity with Barbara but about Barbara’s abortion as well. Margaret told him, thus leading him to break up with Barbara. But Susan has no confession to make which makes the others turn on her. Meanwhile, Tom determines Barbara who is the wealthiest is his prey. But, while Tom is away with some friends on a yacht, Georgios invites Barbara out for scuba-diving lessons, where they meet several sirens. Sitting on some rocks, they begin to sing, crashing Tom’s yacht, and jump back into the sea. Georgios and Barbara dive in, too, where they make love. But in order to keep the memory, Barbara must not tell anyone. Tom and his buddies end up in the hospital, after being rescued. Georgios then takes Margaret to the Pythian oracle. In a trance, the oracle tells Margaret she must shake off her ex, if she is no longer to be his muse and slave. Georgios and Margaret make love but she too must keep it a secret if she is to remember. The next day, she calls her ex and tells him she is completely through with him, but then starts having second thoughts. Tom tries to seduce Alexandra, as his next target, and she decides to let him. But, oddly, Tom cannot follow through, falling asleep instead. So, Georgios takes her to a bacchanal hosted by the goat-man divinity Dionysus. Georgios and Alexandra make love which she will remember if she agrees to secrecy. Susan sees them returning and waits for Georgios for her turn. He takes her to Circe who shows Susan her corral, where a herd of hogs (former sailors) squeals. Circe teaches Susan an ancient Greek spell. She accompanies Susan and Georgios to a splendid chamber and leaves them alone. Once again, there is love-making under terms of secrecy. Georgios visits Tom in his hotel room that evening, leaving him with a prophetic dream. The five return to the States but the older women and Tom cannot keep their secrets. Yet, the women have changed: Barbara marries her guy, Alexandra and her husband cannot stop making love, and Margaret is the acclaimed novelist, leaving her ex in the dust. Only Susan has stayed quiet. At Alexandra’s garden party in LA, Susan’s husband returns and berates her publicly. She whispers Circe’s spell and he turns into a hog, upsetting the table and falls into the pool. Susan kisses the nearby statue of Apollo.