After the death of his young daughter shatters himself, his marriage and his career, a hyper-rational neurosurgeon is forced to relearn how to breathe, feel and love by returning to the jazz saxophone he abandoned decades earlier – risking everything for one last chance at emotional redemption.

SYNOPSIS:

PLAYING THE CHANGES

RAY STARK has built his life on logic, discipline, and control. Top neurosurgeon at Mass General, he is tipped to be the next Chief. He believes problems can be solved, pain can be managed, and emotions – his own included – are distractions best ignored.

His lonely and despairing wife, CATHY, pours all of her frustrated love and hopes into caring for their ten-year-old daughter MAUREEN (or “MO”), who suffers from leukemia.

With the competition to succeed Ray’s mentor RANDALL MAYNARD III as Chief in full swing, Mo suffers a relapse of her leukemia, but Ray refuses to take his eyes off the prize. Mo dies of heart failure during an operation, but rather than grieve Ray throws himself more intensely into his work and locks down his emotions even tighter.

As deeply suppressed grief exposes the limits of his hyper-rational mind, long-buried memories resurface: a childhood shaped by a bullying father and an alcoholic mother, and a boy who learned early on that empathy was a liability.

Abandoned by Ray and alone in her grief, Cathy gives up hoping the tender young man she fell in love with many years ago will ever return. Encouraged by her sexy, spirited – and duplicitous – friend JANET SALVATORE (who has ulterior motives), she moves out to start a new life on her own. Ray is stunned.

After Cathy’s departure, Ray’s downward spiral intensifies. Wracked with guilt over Mo’s death and his own inability to save her or even connect, he suffers a nervous breakdown at a medical conference in front of hundreds of colleagues. Shortly thereafter, he botches a complicated procedure and Maynard orders him to take a sabbatical. His dream of becoming the next Chief seems doomed.

An unexpected encounter with an old jazz recording reawakens a part of Ray that he abandoned decades earlier: the musician he once was, and the emotions he trained himself to silence. With all his free time, a melancholic Ray starts playing his old sax after a twenty-five-year layoff. He recalls the joy he felt playing music as a boy – joy he hasn’t felt in years. He tracks down CLEMENT “OZZIE” OSWALD, a legendary jazz saxophonist and protégé of John Coltrane, and induces the reluctant veteran to take him on.

Ray realizes the only times he’s ever been happy was playing saxophone as a student and falling in love with Cathy during his residency – he realizes the long-repressed emotions these memories evoke are somehow connected. Determined to win her back to recover the other missing piece of his youthful bliss, Ray invites Cathy to Valentine’s Day dinner, but she leaves abruptly after he starts pressuring her to get back together.

In their bi-weekly lessons, Ozzie mixes gruff criticism with inspirational and humorous stories. Ray, enthralled, gradually opens up and learns to reconnect with his emotions. Over the following months he makes tremendous progress, both on the saxophone and as a student of life. Ozzie’s experiences as a widower, a junkie who served time in Sing Sing, and a boy who suffered under a brutal father allow the two men to bond and heal.

Against Ozzie’s advice, Ray plays – and bombs – at an Open Mic. Humiliated, he decides to give up “this saxophone nonsense” and return to the hospital before Maynard’s ultimatum expires. Ozzie retorts, “You ain’t sellin’ no sax, you ain’t goin’ nowhere.” Ray stays put and continues his lessons as Maynard ratchets up the pressure for his return.

Ray visits Mo’s grave on her birthday and finally breaks down, realizing that his emotional distance, physical absence and egotistical self-absorption for so many years were simply the flip side of his father’s incessant bullying, which caused him to shut down emotionally as a boy. Able to grieve his daughter at last and now fully cognizant of the pain he has caused – after months of Ozzie’s “tough love” mentoring – he determines to change and make amends with his estranged wife . . . if she will let him.

Meanwhile, an increasingly confident Cathy builds a new life, gradually overcoming her despair, winning a major promotion at work, taking Art History courses to follow her own youthful passions, and dating a handsome Boston Brahmin while deflecting persistent and unwelcome calls from Ray – who is desperate to show how he is changing.

After several months of further progress, Ozzie thrills Ray with an invitation to join him for a gig at Boston’s top jazz club. Ray joyfully invites Cathy, hoping she will finally see his changes for herself, but she responds with divorce papers. Ray is devastated.

At rehearsal just before the gig, Ozzie suffers a massive brain hemorrhage while blowing an intense solo. He dies on the operating table. Ray, distraught, arrives back at the club shortly before he and the band – now minus Ozzie – are due to perform. He is crushed that Cathy hasn’t come to the gig or given him a chance, but the show must go on.

Deeply ambivalent, and against Janet’s self-serving advice, Cathy finally decides to check out Ray’s gig and bursts into the club just as Ray finishes an impassioned solo before an enthusiastic audience. She fights her way to the front of the cheering crowd.

Ray sees her from the stage and is overcome with emotion. He dedicates the next song to Cathy and Mo and plays a beautiful, heartfelt ballad with tears and sweat streaming down his face.

Cathy, stunned at the “new” Ray – reminiscent of the tender-hearted young man she fell in love with many years ago – reaches into her purse, unzips the inside pocket, and slips on her wedding band as Ray continues his ecstatic soloing.

PLAYING THE CHANGES