Wind

The main characters in Wind are the couple Kate and Will, who are also a professional pair in the world of sailing. The millionaire Morgan Weld, who has won the America's Cup before and intends to win it again, hires the pair but fires Kate, perhaps because she draws the attention. Will is not prepared to give up his career as helmsman for Morgan Weld, so Kate leaves him. Out in the Nevada desert she finds a new life as an aircraft designer with the eccentric Joe Heiser, who becomes her new boyfriend. Meanwhile Will and his crew lose the race to the Australian Jack Neville, a defeat of enormous proportions, since the America's Cup has always been in American hands.

Will begins to realise that the only way he can get over the humiliation is by winning back the America's Cup, so he seeks out Kate, whose boyfriend immediately goes along with the idea of building a new boat to be ready for the next race, but then money must be found. Abigail Weld offers to provide it. She is Will's new girlfriend and happens to be Morgan's daughter. Kate too is gradually persuaded to take part. In fact there are hints that she and Will are not quite over each other, but making a romantic drama is not the film's purpose. It is about winning, about being a skilled sportsman and loving one's sport, and above all it is of course about sailing. If you are not familiar with it, Wind provides an introduction that is both informative and fascinating, but as with most films featuring a sport, it can be too much of a good thing if you are not a passionate enthusiast yourself and have no particular plans to become one.

It can come as no surprise that the American team wins back the Cup, but the director wisely chooses not to close the film's love plot definitively. It is still an open question whether Will and Kate will find their way back to each other.