Early on September 30, 1975, in McCarthy, Texas, at a
Woolworth's five-and-dime store, its owner Juanita listens to
gospel music on the radio. She gets ready for the day, opens the store, and addresses someone as "Jimmy Dean". The all-female fan club Disciples of
James Dean is having a reunion meeting at the store, to honor the twentieth anniversary of the actor's death. Disciple Sissy comes in tardy; she had been helping out at the truck stop. Juanita says that more members could arrive soon: Disciple Mona ought to have already been there, but her bus is running far behind schedule. Sissy worries about the weather, as it is "118 degrees in the shade". The story flashes back to a stormy night in 1955. Sissy shelters inside the store and asks after three employees who are friends of hers: Mona, Sydney, and Joseph "Joe" Qualley. Joe is there, busy stocking new issues of
Photoplay magazine. Mona arrives, having been delayed by the weather. Sissy, Mona, and Joe go up to the front counter and sing the contemporary doo-wop song "
Sincerely". Juanita is chagrined, as she only approves of gospel music. The main storyline returns. Disciples Stella Mae and Edna Louise make their way to the five-and-dime; they have one of the red jackets that the club members used to wear. Mona joins them and explains that her bus had broken down and required repair. Amidst the excited reunion celebration, she looks at a group picture made with James Dean. Mona recalls the last time that the Disciples—all dressed in their jackets—had come together. Mona's 20-year-old memory segues into another flashback. Mona has recently moved back to McCarthy from college, claiming that the atmosphere at college had inflamed her asthma and led to an attack, with her doctors then advising her to return to McCarthy. Later, the overjoyed Disciples find Sissy and break the news that
Elizabeth Taylor,
Rock Hudson, and James Dean will be in
Marfa, Texas, to film
Giant—62 miles away from McCarthy. Auditions for extra cast members will be carried out across the area. Mona idolizes Dean and she dreams of playing beside him in the film. Joe drives her to Marfa so she can fulfill her desire. In the modern storyline, Mona claims that when she went to Marfa, Dean chose her to bear his son, and on that night he fathered her child Jimmy Dean. She says that her boy Jimmy Dean is mentally deficient, and she isolates him from the community. Sissy says that Mona has been "warped and demented" to hide her son. Mona loses her temper and insults Sissy, who goes outside to "cool off". A
Porsche sports car roars into town and its driver peers in through the storefront window. Mona and Juanita greet the window shopper, who identifies herself as Joanne. She had seen writing on an old highway sign that noted Dean's son was to be found at the store. The Disciples learn that Joanne was formerly Joe Qualley, the only male who had been a part of their social circle. The story flashes back to a young Joanne—as Joe—recounting the events some days after a McCarthy High School dance, which Joe had attended
wearing a dress. Leicester T, a boy their age who had an ambiguous tryst with Joanne on that night before finding out she was in fact 'Joe' crossdressing, assaulted and dragged Joe to a graveyard before proceeding to assault her while locals from the town jeered behind a fence. All this is recounted to Mona and Sissy by a young 'Joe,' with them tending to the bruises and wounds on his face. Unable to recount what Leicester T proceeded to do whilst spreading him over a gravestone and pulling down his overalls, Joe is only able to scream how he kept calling him Joanne. The Disciples in 1975 have just heard the story. Stella Mae asks whether Joanne is "half-man, half-woman"—a
hermaphrodite, in case people ask. Joanne says that she had a
sex-change operation thirteen years ago and, when pressed by Stella, remarks that she can simply call her 'a freak,' as her friends are more likely to understand the term. Later that day, Juanita thinks she hears thunder and she warns the Disciples to brace themselves for stormy weather. But the noise was from a loud
sports car motor—Mona's son Jimmy Dean had stolen Joanne's Porsche and was racing its engine. Joanne phones the Texas Highway Patrol to tell them about Jimmy Dean, which triggers a final storyline transition. The Disciples of yesteryear listen as a man on the radio announces that an automobile accident has killed 24-year-old Hollywood film star James Dean. The girls pledge to hold a vigil. The 1975 reunion winds down among further questions and answers. Mona remarks again how, as soon as she tried to leave McCarthy, she almost died from
asthma attacks, so she has found the town's warm and dry atmosphere to be vital. She then goes on to reminisce about her part as an extra on the set of
Giant, which the others have never been able to find in the film. Meanwhile, certain details from her two accounts combine to clearly indicate that Joanne is in fact the father of Mona's son, as Sissy reveals that the young Jimmy Dean has never seen a doctor, and is probably unencumbered by any disability. In the fallout from the revelation, The Disciples drink together, laughing, and make a pact to hold another reunion in another twenty years; Mona alone demurs. Left alone, she, Sissy, and Joanne stand together before the mirrors as they had done before, and again sing "Sincerely" in concert. The song fades into blowing wind over shots of a decrepit, decayed, abandoned five-and-dime store building as the film ends. ==Cast==