The Prince of Tides

The Prince of Tides is a 1991 American romantic drama film directed and co-produced by Barbra Streisand and written by Pat Conroy and Becky Johnston, based on Conroy's 1986 novel. Starring Streisand and Nick Nolte, it tells the story of the narrator's struggle to overcome the psychological damage inflicted by his dysfunctional childhood in South Carolina.

The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. A television series adaptation was stated to be in development for Apple TV+.

Tom Wingo, a teacher and football coach from South Carolina, is asked by his mother, Lila, to travel to New York City to help his twin sister Savannah's psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein, after Savannah's latest suicide attempt. Tom hates New York but reluctantly accepts, largely to take the opportunity to be alone and away from a life that does not satisfy him.

During his initial meetings with Lowenstein, Tom is reluctant to disclose many details of their dysfunctional family's secrets. In flashbacks, he relates incidents from his childhood to Lowenstein in hopes of discovering how to save Savannah's life. The Wingo parents were an abusive father, Henry, and a manipulative, status-hungry mother, Lila. The father was a shrimp boat operator and, despite being successful, spent his money on frivolous business pursuits, leaving the family in poverty.

Tom is also torn by his own problems but hides behind what he calls "the Southern way"—laughing at things instead of crying. For example, his wife Sallie is having an affair, and her lover wants to marry her.

Tom and Lowenstein begin to have feelings for each other. After Tom discovers that she is married to Herbert Woodruff, a famous concert violinist, Lowenstein introduces Tom to her son Bernard, who is being groomed to become a musician as well but secretly wants to play football.

Tom starts coaching Bernard along with attending sessions with Lowenstein to help his sister. He discovers that Savannah has been in such a dissociated state that she even had a different identity, Renata Halpern. As Halpern, she wrote books to disguise the Savannah side of her troubled life. Tom confronts Lowenstein over not revealing this information before, and they argue. To apologize, she asks him to dinner, and their relationship becomes closer.

Tom has a fateful meeting with his mother and stepfather, bringing up painful memories. He reveals that, when he was 13, three escaped convicts invaded his home and raped him, his mother, and his sister. His older brother, Luke, killed two of the aggressors with a shotgun, while his mother stabbed the third with a kitchen knife. They buried the bodies beneath the house and never spoke of it again.