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Dragonfly

Out UK/Ireland: 7 June 2002

Certificate: 12

Stars: Kevin Costner, Joe Morton, Ron Rifkin, Linda Hunt, Susanna Thompson, Jacob Vargas, Kathy Bates

Director: Tom Shadyac

When someone you love dies, are they gone forever?

As head of emergency services for Chicago Memorial Hospital, Dr. Joe Darrow (Kevin Costner) is a respected expert in trauma and triage. But his professional knowledge provides little comfort when tragedy claims the life of his wife. A doctor herself, Emily Darrow (Susanna Thompson) was on a medical mercy mission when she died in a bus accident on a remote mountain road in Venezuela. Joe had argued against her taking that trip and now can only imagine the worst when he thinks of her final moments.

Six months after her death, Emily's body has not been recovered and Joe has shut down. His professional demeanor is starting to crack as he numbs himself with marathon 20-hour shifts, seven days a week. His increasingly erratic behavior compels hospital administrator Hugh Campbell (Joe Morton) to order Joe to take time off and pull himself together.

Despite the efforts of caring friends, family and Miriam Belmont (Kathy Bates) next door, Joe remains isolated by unexpressed grief. Reminders of Emily are everywhere, among them images of dragonflies, her personal totem because of a birthmark on her shoulder. Alone in their rambling house, Joe is spooked one night when Emily's treasured dragonfly paperweight crashes from a bedside table to the floor, almost as if it had been pushed.

Joe's unease increases when he visits Emily's former patients in the pediatric oncology ward. Joe promised to look in on the kids when Emily left for Venezuela, and as he meets them now, they surprise him with their knowledge about him and his life. To them, he is not a burned-out E.R. doc, but rather 'Emily's Joe.'

Joe is particularly struck by Jeffrey, a boy who has survived numerous near-death experiences. He claims he has seen Emily "inside a rainbow" and that she is trying to communicate with Joe. Then another child returns from the brink of death with a remarkably similar story, and, like Jeffrey, is obsessed with drawing a mysterious abstract shape as soon as he regains consciousness. That strange shape begins to appear in other contexts in Joe's world, as if serving notice that he must look beyond the ordinary for answers to his questions.

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