The Forbidden Desire

At thirty-two, Alice is a housewife in a middle-class marriage that appears comfortable from the outside. Richard, a senior bank executive, supplies the material security others admire, but his physical problems have left their relationship cold and largely formal. Within this carefully maintained home, Alice is living with the cost of a life that offers comfort without closeness. When Richard’s younger brother Noah arrives for the summer, Alice is forced to face feelings connected to their earlier romance. They were lovers before she married Richard, but her father’s serious illness changed the course of their relationship: Richard used the promise of financial help for medical care to secure the marriage. Now old desire returns, placing Alice between an existing marriage, a past love, and the consequences of their renewed intimacy, including a pregnancy that raises the stakes of the triangle.