Dragonfly (film)
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| Dragonfly | |
|---|---|
 Dragonfly film poster |
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| Directed by | Tom Shadyac |
| Produced by | Gary Barber |
| Written by | Brandon Camp Mike Thompson |
| Starring | Kevin Costner Joe Morton Ron Rifkin Linda Hunt and Kathy Bates |
| Distributed by | - USA - Universal Pictures - non-USA - Touchstone Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 22 February 2002 (USA) |
| Running time | 104 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$60,000,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
Dragonfly is a 2002 film directed by Tom Shadyac. The story is about a grieving doctor being contacted by his late wife through his patients' near-death experience.
[edit] Main cast
- Kevin Costner – Dr. Joe Darrow
- Susanna Thompson – Dr. Emily Darrow
- Joe Morton – Hugh Campbell
- Ron Rifkin – Charlie Dickinson
- Kathy Bates – Miriam Belmont
[edit] Plot
- Tagline: When someone you love dies...are they gone forever?
Dr. Joe Darrow and wife Dr. Emily Darrow work at a well-known hospital in Chicago. While she specialises in pediatric oncology, he is the head chief medical doctor in the emergency room. Occasionally, Emily takes trips to South America to help the native peoples who are unable to afford healthcare. At nearly nine months pregnant, she was needed by the people in South America. Joe disapproves of her going and insists she stay home in case she delivers the baby.
In spite of how her husband feels, she heads to the Amazon area without him. The weather turns for worst where she is located and the entire village is evacuated. In the midst of evacuation, the bus in which Dr. Emily and the people were on gets hit by a landslide then rolls off the road and plunges into the river below. A native village nearby attempts to rescue everybody, but they are only able to free Emily. Although they are unable to save her, they save the unborn child.
Joe tries his best to function as normal, but he does not take time to grieve his wife's death. He returns to work as if nothing has happened. Before his wife passes away, they have promised one another to look after their patients if something were to happen to either one of them. One night, he falls asleep on the pediatric oncology floor. One of his wife's patients is being brought in by the medical staff unconscious. The staff is trying to revive him, and they are having no success. He hears the child calling his name over and over. "Joe, Joe can't you hear me, Joe." Naturally, he follows the staff to confirm if what he is hearing were real. All the monitors on the child show flat lines, no heart beat. Finally, the child responds to their treatment, and his heart begins beating.
The following afternoon, he returns to the child and questions him. The child asks him if he is Emily's husband and tells him she sent him back to tell Joe something. All over the room are drawings of a curvy cross. He asks the boy if he knows what it is, but the boy replies that he doesn't know. The boy said that his he had a near death experience, and when he was clinically dead, saw all that was going on inside the hospital room. Then, the boy said, he saw a light, and there was a woman standing there. She showed him Joe's picture, and told him he had to go back. The boy then suddenly points at the picture of the wavy cross symbol he drew, saying, "This is a rainbow,". In another child's room, he sees the same drawing and still no one can understand. When he arrives at home, his mysteriously parrot goes into a rage. The parrot knocks out the light, and when Joe goes to the window, he sees a dragonfly flying. There is no light around, yet it still flies. His wife always had a passion for dragonfly. She has a birthmark on her back which reminds her of a dragonfly. Later,when he comes back to look at the mess in the kitchen, he sees in the soil on the ground that spilled out of a broken pot, the same wavy cross symbol.
Days pass by, and Joe still does not know what is taking over his life. His neighbour and long time friend, Miriam Belmont, tries to bring him back into reality, to no avail. The breaking point in his life occurs at the hospital. He is alone with a clinically dead patient awaiting organ transplant, and he believes his wife spoke through the patient. Joe tries to stop the surgical procedure, and security is called to arrest him. Mrs. Belmont bails him out of jail on special conditions. He decides to sell the home and go on vacation. While packing away his wife's belongings, the light in the room burns out. When he returns with a new bulb, all the belongings he had packed away are suddenly back in their original place. He believes he is losing his grip on life, and in desperation he runs out the front door and pleas for help. He enters his kitchen where one of his wife's maps has blown open. On the map he sees the mysterious curvy cross symbol. He calls a friend who tells him the wiggly cross is the map symbol for a waterfall. He sees an old photo of his wife posing in front of a waterfall- with a rainbow behind her formed by the suns rays hitting the waterfall, realising that it was what the boy who said it was a rainbow meant, and decides he has to go there.
He takes a trip to the South American village where his wife spent her last days. Somehow, he believes if he could find out where the accident took place, he might get closure. Joe finds the accident location and looks at the graves for the victims. He then jumps into the river where the bus remained. He enters the flooded bus, and the bus moves further down the river. Water is building higher and higher until it reaches the top, and Joe is trapped as one of his legs got jammed under the seat. Then, a bright glow fills the bus, and his wife appears to him. She reaches her hand out, and they connect. The events of her final hours flash before him. He sees that she survived the initial accident and was pulled to safety by the villagers nearby. He is then suddenly rescued out of the bus by his guide.
When he tries to enter the village, alarming his guide who says they need permission first, he is surrounded by angry native men with weapons. He holds up a photo of his wife. An aboriginal woman walks up to him and begins speaking to him, saying that they couldn't save her but they saved her soul. She leads him into one of the huts, and inside is an infant in a basket. The child his wife was carrying survived the accident. Immediately tears begin to flow from his eyes. The woman shows him a birthmark on the child. It is in the shape of a dragonfly on the inside of her lower leg. As he embraces the infant, he begins to think of the memories of his wife.
Joe returns to the United States to rebuild a life for himself and his newly found baby daughter, who grows up, having the same wavy blonde hair, and the very image of his wife.
