Till Human Voices Wake Us (R)

synopsis

For as long as people have fallen in love, they have been haunted; haunted by memories, by regrets, by unfulfilled longings. Dr. Sam Frank is haunted in just such a way. When Sam's father passes away, he returns to his childhood home for the funeral, only to be accosted by memories of a summer of magic and pain. It was the summer that 15-year-old Sam fell madly in love with his childhood friend Silvy. Yet when Silvy appeared to have drowned, her body never discovered, Sam buried the painful memories of how she was lost and his own fateful role in the nightmare. Now, returning home as an adult, those memories have come crashing back, despite everything Sam has done to keep them at bay. Just as Sam is attempting to return to the city and escape the eerie sadness of his father's house, he sees a woman fall off a bridge, a woman he met earlier on the train who called herself Ruby. When Sam rescues her from the water, he only wants to make sure she will be safe, but he soon discovers Ruby can't remember anything. While Sam fights to rid himself of his memories, Ruby searches for hers. In the lost moments, passion is sparked. The closer Sam gets to Ruby the more he is convinced that he has known her all his life. The coincidences begin to pile up--the way she talks, the way she laughs, her love for the water and favorite poem, all the same as the one who came before. The mystery lures Sam even as it frightens him, drawing him further and further into the riddle. Yet Ruby has her own secret needs, ones, which will turn Sam's trip home into a battle between illusion and reality, into both a disquieting haunting and a hungered-for reconciliation.