This creative and unsettling documentary by Cindy Kleine focuses on the 59-year marriage of her mother Phyllis and her father Harold. Early on, the filmmaker says of them: "All my life I've tried to figure out who these people are and what they're doing together." They do not share the same interests and are constantly bickering with each other. Kleine spices up interviews with her parents with homemade movies, photographs of the family, pop tunes, and animated material.
Harold was a controlling man in the early stages of the marriage, but now that they are older, Phyllis has taken charge of things. She wonders how he can spend 16 hours a day sitting in his chair. There is a very revealing session where Kleine films her septuagenarian mother and father sitting beside each other reading aloud love letters from early in their relationship. Harold professes his abiding love for Phyllis but she is not in sync with him on this. At one point, she can't hold back her tears.
They are not tears of regret for the good times gone. They are tears for the one person on earth who loved her the way she wanted to be loved: her boss, a married man with whom she carried on a passionate affair for five years. Her yearning for him is vividly made clear in the blissful smile that comes across her face each time she talks about him.
Once her affair ended, Phyllis flung herself into countless activities as a suburban mother of two. She was not very interested in her daughters who were taken care of for ten years by an African-American nanny. Meanwhile, money from Harold's successful work as a Long Island dentist and real estate wizard provided them with the financial resources to travel the globe. Whereas he remembers the past as his "golden years" of wedded bliss, Phyllis remains convinced that she married the wrong man. That is why she renews her love affair with the married man 40 years after their separation. Both the filmmaker and her sister aid their mother in keeping this secret as she flies from one city to another each year to meet with her lover. Kleine laments not having any close connection to Harold who was gone most of the time. She also makes it clear that Phyllis was more of "a glittering fairy queen" than a loving mother.
Phyllis and Harold shows how yearning can be both a burden and a blessing for those who are caught in its tenacious grasp.
Special features on the DVD include a commentary by director Cindy Kleine and producer André Gregory.
