The movie starts with Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) drinking the last drops of water from a gallon jug. He tosses the jug to the side. All you see is Texas desert. One might assume that he's going to die from dehydration out in this desert as there isn't any buildings or roads that one can see. He comes across a bar, grabs some ice cubes from a freezer, and then faints. He wakes up in a hospital, unable to speak. Via his belongings, the doctor is able to find a phone number and gives the phone number a call. The phone number is to Walt (Dean Stockton), Travis' brother, who lives in Los Angeles. Walt quickly flies out to Texas after telling his wife Anne (Aurore Clement). Anne asks what they should say to Hunter (Hunter Carson) -- someone we don't know anything about at this time. Walt tells Anne to let Hunter know that his father has come back onto the scene.
When Walt flies to Texas and locates Travis (who had decided to ramble off from the hospital), Travis is still unable to speak. But we slowly gain details about his life. He's been gone for about 4 years. Both he and his wife Jane (Nastassja Kinski) had just disappeared. Their son Hunter was just dropped off at the doorstep of Walt and Anne by, most likely, a third party when he was just 3. In fact, Walt and Anne had just assumed that Travis was dead and probably had told Hunter this fact. As time passed, the two of them treated Hunter as their own son and he started to call them mom and dad. At this point in time, Hunter is 7.
The brothers go through a misadventure on a plane, exiting as it is on the tarmac (oh how times have changed since 1984). They temporarily end up in the middle of the Mojave Desert after Travis decides to take a detour off the highway as Walt is sleeping in the car. They eventually make it back to Los Angeles where Anne welcomes Travis warmly while Hunter is stand off-ish.
One night, to try and create a bond between Travis and Hunter, Walt shows everyone an old home movie from a time when Walt and Anne went to Texas to visit Travis, Jane and Hunter. After seeing how happy Travis and Jane are, there is a sense of forgiveness in Hunter and the two of them begin to bond over time with Travis walking Hunter home from school.
Later, Walt and Anne have a late night (2 a.m.) discussion. Anne wants to know why Walt is encouraging the bond between Travis and Hunter. She does not want Hunter to feel that he has two sets of parents. She is also concerned about their own relationship if Hunter leaves their family unit. Their discussion wakes up Hunter, who ends up hearing this conversation and gets the wrong impression of it.
Perhaps to try and encourage Travis to move on, Anne has a talk with him. She mentions that Jane had kept in contact with her for about 2.5 years after Hunter was dropped off. And even though Jane had stop those conversations, she would send money to Anne on the 5th of each month to build a savings account for Hunter. She informs him that it is made from a specific bank in Houston, Texas.
Her plan backfires as she didn't realize that Hunter had over-heard her conversation with Walt. Travis and Hunter end up traveling together to Houston to find Jane. (Another signs of the times are scenes where Hunter rides in the bed of the pickup truck that they're driving. Yeah, not something that happens these days.) Once in Houston, the two of them monitor the bank from two different directions. (Perhaps another sign of the times is that no security guard comes out wondering why a 7 year old kid is just hanging outside the bank all alone.) Hunter notices someone who looks very similar to his mother. Travis and Hunter drive after her. Hunter wants them to drive up alongside the car and perhaps surprise her. Travis has other plans. He wants to scout out the situation further. We learn why later in the film.
They end up following her car to a peep-show club. He briefly talks to her and then leaves. By leave, he travels over a hundred miles back to California before stepping into a bar and getting drunk. Walt and Hunter find some random open building that has a couch and seat so that Walt can sober up. Either later that day or the next morning they get back into the car with a decision to make. Do they head back to California via San Antonio or go back to Houston? Hunter makes the decision that they should go back to Houston.
They spend the night at a really nice hotel called the Meridien Hotel. Now how does Travis, who has no known money, afford such a nice hotel? Well, Walt had given him some cash and a credit card to use (obviously, not aware the Hunter would be going along for the ride). The next day, Travis leaves Hunter at the hotel and heads back to the peep-show club where he once again talks with Jane. We learn more more about the background of their relationship via a story that Travis tells her. He was a man in his 40s who fell in love with a girl who was just 17, maybe 18. They seem to have a wonderful time together though there are some rough spots and their relationship doesn't exactly seem stable. Then Hunter is born. Jane becomes depressed and Walt becomes abusive. He actually ties Jane up to the stove. Also, though it isn't certain, it is possible that Jane set the house on fire and ran away with Hunter, hoping that Travis would die in the fire. It is also possible the fire was due to a gas leak caused by Jane managing to escape from her bondage to the stove.
Jane realizes who she is talking to (she was unable to see him through the two-way glass). The two of them share a loving connection even though they are separated by the glass. Travis tells her that Hunter is at the hotel and asks if she wants to see him. She agrees. Later that night, she coms to the hotel room. Below in the hotel parking lot is Travis. Jane and Hunter embrace. Travis drives off into the night once he sees that the mother and son are together.
The ending, to me, strikes the heart. Though you see the love between a missing mother and son, it makes you reflect back to the conversation that Walt and Anne had at 2 a.m. They both love Hunter and treat him as their son. Anne feels that if Hunter leaves, this will create a void in their relationship. Both are in their late 30s or early 40s, perhaps unable to have their own child. And you also have to consider the fact that even though Jane was helping build a savings account for Hunter, she wasn't providing Walt and Anne with other financial support to cover the expenses of a child. And basically, she was a missing parent who had no communication with her child for 4 years. And yet the movie ends with another family unit created and perhaps an original family unit falling apart. Is this really fair? Admittedly, who really knows what happens next. For sure, Travis has decided to disappear again. But maybe Jane and Hunter head to Los Angeles where Hunter can still be part of the lives of Walt and Anne. One can only hope that this is the true ending of the film.
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