Trama

A young man searches for the proper owner of a ring that belonged to a U.S. World War II bomber gunner who crashed in Belfast, Northern Ireland on June 1, 1944.

Three intertwined stories of lost and unspoken love and the resulting secrets are presented. In one, which begins in 1941 Branagan, Michigan, twenty-one year old Ethel Ann socializes primarily with three male friends, who are all in love with her. She only loves one, Teddy Gordon, their mutual love known within the group. Her parents would never approve of Teddy, the poor country boy, who is building a house for her eventually to be able to show her parents that he is worth something in his love for her. Their relationship is interrupted by the U.S. entry into the war, into which all three men are going into battle. Before their departure, the three men enter into a pact unbeknownst to Ethel Ann. In two, which also takes place in Branagan, but in 1991, World War II U.S. Army Air Forces veteran, septuagenarian Chuck Harris, after an illness, has just passed away. Those that knew him always considered him the reliable one. His death leaves a void in his family, as there has always been a distance between his wife and their daughter, Ethel Ann and Marie, respectively. Marie is perturbed that her mother doesn't seem to be mourning Chuck's death. Another of the mourners is Chuck and Ethel Ann's longtime friend, Jack Etty, also a World War II U.S. Army Air Forces veteran. Although Jack has never said so to them, Jack's son, Peter, and Marie believe that Jack has also had a thing for Ethel Ann. The longer the time passes, the closer Marie comes to abandoning her mother, their relationship which may change if only Ethel Ann and Jack would open up about their feelings holistically. And in three, which also takes place in 1991, an innocent young man named Jimmy Riley, a military buff who lives with his grandmother in Belfast, has joined eccentric old Mr. Quinlan to dig on Black Mountain on the outskirts of the city, the side of the hill known as a World War II fighter plane crash site. Although Jimmy and Mr. Quinlan have dug up bits and pieces of the plane, Jimmy ultimately discovers an engraved ring. Partly on Mr. Quinlan's urging, Jimmy is determined to return the ring to who he believes is its rightful owner. Their digging, however, gets them inadvertently involved in the on-going Northern Ireland conflict, the hill which both sides use for some of their clandestine activities.—Huggo

In 1943, a dying gunner, who was in a crash involving a United States B-17, gives a ring to a local to return to his girlfriend in the U.S. Fifty years later, a man finds the ring and tracks down the girlfriend and the history of this ring. Set in Belfast and Michigan.—Trent Johnson

In rural Michigan in 1991, Marie Harris (Neve Campbell) delivers the eulogy at the funeral of her father Chuck (David Alpay), a U.S. Army Air Force veteran who had fought in World War II. The church is full of veterans who knew and loved him. Her mother Ethel Ann (Shirley MacLaine) is sitting out on the church porch, smoking and nursing a hangover.

Ethel is indifferent to Chuck's death, which only her friend Jack Etty (Christopher Plummer) seems to understand. Jack is a fellow veteran of Chuck. He approaches Ethel and says that she should attend the funeral. Ethel retorts that she knows what Marie is going to say and that she simply cannot stand it.

Jack's son Peter extends his condolences to Ethel and says Chuck loved her very much. Ethel admits to Peter that in all his life, Chuck never believed it. Shortly thereafter, Chuck is buried in his grave in an elaborate ceremony. Jack conducts a low pass over the ceremony in a WW II era fighter plane. Marie thinks that Jack pulled this stunt to impress Ethel.

Marie is furious with her mother for missing her Eulogy and with her implication that she slept with many of the veterans when they were all young, but then Ethel relents and says that she was always faithful. It emerges that there is a lot Marie does not know about her mother's past and the true story of her love life. She tells Marie never to let a man build a house for her. Ethel tells Marie that her life was over at 21, which was 10 years before she married Chuck. Marie reaches out to Jack to understand what Ethel meant. Jack asks Marie to stop digging around the past.

A young Ethel was in love with young farmer Teddy Gordon (Stephen Amell), who builds a house with his best friends Jack and Chuck. Her parents think she is dating "good old reliable" Chuck (all three are in love with her). Chuck, Jack and Teddy all enroll in pilot school for advanced training on the B-17. Teddy's father had left him a piece of land, and a little cash. Teddy then worked at a sawmill and they paid him in lumber. Teddy brought all of this together to build the house for Ethel. Teddy wanted to complete the house before he is called away for the war. Teddy says that when he asks Ethel's parents for her hand in marriage, he wants to have something solid to show. Ethel has sex with Teddy right then and there. Soon, Teddy completes the house.

Within days of the Pearl Harbor attack, Ethel had accepted Teddy's gold ring and unofficially married him, with Jack and Chuck as witnesses. Ethel tells Teddy that she will always love him and would never have any room for anyone in her heart, other than him. The three young men fly out the next day. Teddy and Jack are stationed at RAF Langford Lodge near Belfast, where Jack plans to eventually propose to Eleanor (Brenda Fricker), an Irish woman. Teddy insists that all 3 friends be assigned to different planes and tells Chuck and Jack that if he doesn't make it back, he wants one of them to take his place and take care of Ethel. He knows that both Chuck and Jack love Ethel.

In 1991 in Belfast Jimmy Riley (Martin McCann), Eleanor's young adult grandson, encounters local elder Michael Quinlan (Pete Postlethwaite), who is digging for wreckage of a crashed B-17 aircraft on nearby Black Mountain. Quinlan asks Jimmy to leave as the mountain is a place of conflict between the army and the IRA. Jimmy is a sincere boy and Quinlan relents to let him dig for the wreckage. Quinlan says that he is looking for a B-17 that crashed on the mountain 50 years ago and killed 10 people when it was blown to bits.

In 1941, Eleanor is dating Cathal (Ian McElhinney), who has just joined the IRA. Most Irish consider the IRA to be anti-national at the time as thousands of Irish boys are serving in the British army fighting Fascism. As the Germans attacked Belfast, many Irish residents take shelter in a bunker, which includes Cathal, Eleanor and a young teenager named Quinlan. A British officer inspects the bunker and finds a loaded pistol on Quinlan, for which he cannot explain the possession. The locals lie for Quinlan and say that the gun belonged to his dad, as a WW I surplus. Quinlan was training to be a fireman as that was what his dad.

Jimmy finds a ring at the site and determines to return it to the woman from the "Ethel & Teddy" inscription. The United States Department of Veterans Affairs identify an Ethel to whom crash victim Teddy Gordon left his belongings.

Jimmy flees The Troubles for Michigan to give Ethel the ring. She reveals a wall covered in souvenirs of Teddy, which Jack and Chuck boarded up for her shortly after his death in June 1944. Marie is shocked and furious to learn that her mother still mourns for him, finally understanding why Ethel shut out Marie and Chuck.

Jack later tells her the full story, including his own three failed marriages, Ethel's refusal to leave the house Teddy built for her, and her taking ten years to marry Chuck. Jack's son, Peter (Allan Hawco), realizes Jack always loved Ethel.

Ethel travels to Belfast with Jimmy. As she holds the hand of a dying British soldier after an IRA car-bomb attack, Quinlan tells Ethel that he, as a teenager, was on Black Mountain when Teddy died. Teddy had him promise to give Ethel the ring, and tell her she must be free to make her own choice in love. Quinlan tearfully says he should have reached out to her back then, and that he had spent 50 years looking for the ring that was lost in the final blast that killed Teddy, now regretfully thinking she needed it as much as she needed his dying words.

Joining Ethel in Belfast, Jack confesses that he has always loved her. She is finally able to cry and properly grieve for Teddy. She and Jack embrace.