The Rain People

Long Island homemaker Natalie Ravenna has just learned that she is pregnant and doesn't know if she's well-equipped to be a mother--or a wife. Feeling trapped in her circumstances, she decides to run away to California to get as far away from her life as possible, although she, in a series of telephone calls back to her husband Vinny, is up-front about what she believes that she is feeling. This escape could be temporary, maybe permanent, she doesn't really know. On her drive, she picks a young, handsome hitchhiker who she learns is former star college football player Jimmy "Killer" Kilgannon. Her sole purpose in picking him up is to have a one-night stand to emotionally escape further from her life with Vinny. When she tries to drop him off at the home of one of his former girlfriends, Ellen Brook, Natalie further learns the reason for Killer's simple ways: he's mentally-disabled from a head injury sustained in a football game; the college paid him off to leave, Ellen has no interest in him in his mental state, and he has no family. Natalie herself becomes conflicted about helping him when she feels that she can barely help herself. Among the many encounters Natalie has that affects her feelings about her life and about Killer, one with a Nebraska highway patrolman named Gordon provides her with the clearest picture, although it might come at a price.