Lianna 1983

Lianna, Linda Griffiths is married to a college professor in film and media at a university in a midsized New Jersey town, and she has two children. To give her husband the freedom he desires and to counter her growing restlessness, she enrolls in a child psychology class with her friend, Sandy, Jo Henderson.

As the course deepens, Lianna realizes she has a crush on Ruth, the instructor. Ruth, Jane Hallaren, invites Lianna home for dinner, and they talk late into the night. Lianna opens up about her past—how she was a graduate student who married her professor—and the two women begin an affair. The affair is complicated by Lianna’s husband, Jerry, John Sayles, who is having an affair with a student.

Lianna expresses interest in leaving her husband for Ruth, but Ruth pulls back, warning that living with another woman could jeopardize her career and that she already has a partner in another city. Lianna leaves her husband after a fight and begins living alone for the first time in years. She visits a lesbian bar and, through a series of encounters, explores her new identity and her sense of loneliness. The film follows Lianna’s evolving relationships with her children and her decision to take a job as a supermarket cashier, a small but meaningful step toward independence.

Ruth leaves town for California to take another teaching job, leaving Lianna to face life on her own. Yet, in a quiet moment, Lianna and Sandy reconcile, their bond rekindled in a final scene that echoes the opening moment of Lianna and Sandy talking at a park playground.