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the long version

Depicts a poignant if narrow portrait of love, friendship, and mortality. In a bohemian Northern California town, writer Rachel Blum ruminates on the life of Mike Spender, oldest friend of her straight-laced lawyer husband, Neil. Years ago, during a trip to Tahiti, Mike saved Neil's life, a favor that Neil has repaid with dogged loyalty: Neil was Mike's best man at his wedding; cherished his role as uncle to Mike's daughter, Addie; and dutifully assisted the family through an assortment of legal, marital, and health crises. When Rachel entered the picture, marrying Neil late in life, her gratitude for having finally found love is tainted by the separation she feels from his friends and her reservations about Mike's womanizing. When tragedy strikes, Rachel finds her own marriage cast into an upheaval she struggles to understand.