Synopsis

A bold family saga

Things Unsaid, a tale portraying family in all its emotional complexity, traces back three generations rooted in guilt, karma, obligation, duty and broken promises.

Jules, a former professor at Stanford, is sandwiched between competing obligations: to her husband Mike and daughter Zoë and to her dying parents. Jules and Mike have set aside a college fund to pay for Zoë’s tuition as she will be leaving for Stanford soon. But then her parents lose everything in the Great Recession of 2008 and she must choose between her daughter’s future and her dying parents.

Things Unsaid raises the following questions: Do you ever worry about helping your elderly parents with their expenses at the same time you want to help your own children? Are you uncomfortable having to choose between competing obligations? A tale of family love, dysfunction, and sense of duty over forty years. Jules, her sister, and her brother share the same events yet experience them differently, defining themselves in terms of the family they think they know. Ever-shifting covenants between parents and children reveal mismatches that neither mend nor end. Think: “August: Osage County” meets Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant with a touch of Olive Kitteridge.