A pistol shot pops loudly in a dark bedroom in 1933 and a lover slumps. The same shot, again, in 20012. Coincidence? Not for the sisters in "Where Angels Tread," a gothic love story that transcends time and death from the freewheeling jazz age to the new millennium.
Synopsis:
1933 – a rainy night, thunder crashes and lightning illuminates lovers, near the point of ecstasy. Then a pistol shot POPs, blood spatters and a young woman screams.
20012 – a storm is raging outside a chic New York club where Jessy Nolan is launching her new clothing line, to great fanfare. On the surface, things are fabulous, but the 20 something designer knows something is wrong with her life. After a string of disastrous affairs she has just discovered her current lover and financial backer, Thomas, is engaged to another woman. So, on her big fashion week night, she packs a bag and runs, heading home to New Orleans.
At her ancestral home Bienville, Jessy is comforted by her sister, Vicky, who is having her own marriage and career problems. Vicky, a painter, is separated from her husband, has been dropped by her gallery and has moved in to care for their spinster Great Aunt Helen.Despite Auntie’s warnings, the sisters unlock a bedroom that has been sealed for 70 years. The room belonged to Great Aunt Julie, Helen’s sister, who according to family lore, was raped at 18, had a breakdown and died in a sanatorium several months later. Jessy moves into Julie’s room, and soon is haunted by dreams of a mysterious man.
Although Jessy has fled New York, Thomas and her business partner, Michael, are fast to follow. When bouquets of gardenias begin arriving, she figures Thomas must have sent them. Michael brings a wedding dress Jessy is designing for her friend, the psychic Rose. Jessy is on a deadline, but she can’t escape the haunting dreams. Moreover, clothes – a scarf, a nightgown – find their way into her room. When Jessy touches them, it is 1933 again.
In her visions of the past, Jessy sees glimpses of Great Aunt Julie’s demise: a chance meeting with a visiting university professor, Gabriel Cervantes, leads to a blossoming love affair and her jealous sister Helen and worried father and brother plot to keep Julie and Gabriel apart.
In the present, Thomas keeps sending those damn gardenias, and Michael has the hots for Jessy’s sister. For her part, Vicky, is caught up in her impending divorce. Bothered by her sister’s seeming hallucinations, Vicky calls a therapist for her. But Rose confirms that a ghost haunts Bienville, the coincidences begin to add up, and finally Vicky sees Gabriel for herself and starts to believe.
The sisters turn to Aunt Helen for answers. She confesses the truth of what happened 73 years ago. Gabriel raped Julie, and their brother killed him. Their father covered up the murder and sent Julie to the sanitorium. The story sounds plausible to Vicky, but Jessy becomes more curious. Gabriel is now appearing before her, reading the poetry she loves and caressing her gently in the night. She can’t believe he would have harmed the woman he loved.
When she discovers Great Aunt Helen trying to kill a bed of wild gardenias growing in a secret garden on the grounds of Bienville, she knows there is more to the story. Gabriel leads Jessy to the truth – that Helen killed him – and she finally understands that she and Julie are one and the same. She begins to plot her death to be with the man she loves, but this time, Helen must pay for her murderous ways.
While the death of a sister is excruciatingly painful, it proves to be an awakening for Vicky. In Jessy’s passing Vicky sees not tragedy but fulfillment. Jessy has found a peace in the afterlife. In the hear-and-now, Vicky learns to be open to life’s possibilities. By doing so, her painting flourishes, her agent takes her back in the gallery and true love is just around the corner.
