In sepia tones, the film moves back and forth among three periods in Robert Tucker's life : he's an old man , near death
, in a nursing home at Christmas time; he's in middle age caring for his cheerful but dying mother; he's a lad at Catholic school, practicing his catechism
, going to confession for the first time, receiving the Eucharist  , surrounded by the singing of a children's choir. In middle age , he looks through his scrapbook of photographs of muscular men; he recalls lovers and his mother's cremation . A nurse sits beside him on his last night; in his last breath, he reaches forward and back

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