An elderly Norman Maclean is preparing a fishing lure in a river, narrating how his father suggested that he write the story of his family. The film then flashes back to the early 1900s. The Maclean brothers, Norman and Paul, grow up in
Missoula, Montana, with their mother, Clara, and their father, Rev.
John Maclean, a
Presbyterian minister, from whom they learn a love of
fly fishing for trout in the
Blackfoot River. Norman and Paul are
home-schooled under the strict moral and academic code of their father. Norman leaves to attend college at
Dartmouth. Six years later, during the
Prohibition era and the
Jazz Age, he returns and finds that Paul has become a skilled fisherman and a hard-drinking
investigative journalist working for a newspaper in
Helena. Norman attends a
Fourth of July dance and meets Jessie Burns, a
flapper whose father runs the
general store in
Wolf Creek. Smitten, Norman calls her the next morning and sets up a
double date. Norman and Jessie go on their first date at the Hot Springs
speakeasy. Paul arrives with his date, a similarly hard-drinking
Cheyenne woman named Mabel, who is treated as an inferior by the white crowd. After Paul is arrested for hitting a man who insulted Mabel, Norman is called to bail him out of jail. The desk sergeant says that Paul has angered local criminals by falling behind in his debts from a big poker game at the speakeasy in
Lolo. Norman offers to give money to Paul, who brushes him off. Jessie eventually asks Norman to help her
alcoholic brother Neal, who is visiting from
Southern California. Norman and Paul dislike Neal, but at Jessie's insistence they invite him to go
fly fishing. Neal shows up drunk with Rawhide, a
prostitute he met the night before. Norman and Paul get separated from Neal but fish anyway and return to their car hours later to find that Neal and Rawhide have drunk all the beer, had sex, and passed out naked. Norman drives an intoxicated Neal home, where Jessie is enraged that the brothers left Neal alone with the beer instead of fishing with him. Norman tells Jessie that he is falling in love with her. Jessie drives away angry but a week later asks Norman to come to the train station to see Neal off. After the train departs, Jessie laments her failure to save Neal from his
alcoholism. Norman shows Jessie a letter from the
University of Chicago offering him a faculty position in the Department of
English Literature. He tells Jessie that he does not wish to leave Montana and when it becomes clear that it is because of her, she embraces him. That night, a drunken Norman meets up with Paul and announces his love for Jessie. Paul says that they should celebrate but instead takes Norman to the Lolo speakeasy. Paul tries to get in on the poker game in the backroom, but the dealer will not let him play because he already owes so much. This leads to a brief altercation until Norman intervenes. At the car, Paul tells Norman that he is not leaving since he is feeling lucky and that he will convince the others to let him play. Norman reluctantly drives off after Paul asks him to go fishing the next day. |alt= Norman is relieved when Paul arrives the following morning, as he feared for his brother's life. Norman tells his family that he is going to accept the job in Chicago. Norman, Paul, and their father go fly fishing one last time. Norman urges his brother to come with him and Jessie to
Chicago, but Paul says that he will never leave Montana. He hooks a huge
rainbow trout that drags him down the river rapids before he lands it. Rev. Maclean says that Paul has become a wonderful fisherman and an artist in the craft, much to Paul's delight. Before Norman is to leave for Chicago, police inform him that Paul was beaten to death. Norman breaks the news to his parents. Years later, Mrs. Maclean, Norman, Jessie, and their two children listen to a sermon given by Rev. Maclean soon before his own death. Rev. Maclean preaches about being unable to help loved ones who are destroying themselves and will not accept help. All that those who truly care for such a self-destructive person can do, Rev. Maclean concludes, is to give
unconditional love, even without understanding why. The film concludes in the present day with the elderly Norman fishing in the river, lamenting on all that he has learned now that all of his loved ones have passed on. ==Cast==