In 1963, during the swirl of glamour and intrigue that turned President John F. Kennedy's Washington into Camelot, a lonely 13-year-old Catholic school boy comes of age.
What if a boy's coming of age included a relationship with a woman in her 30s, a free spirit who paints and who numbers the President of the United States among her lovers? In Washington, D.C., in the fall of 1963, junior-high student Adam Stafford becomes obsessed with his new neighbor, Catherine Caswell. He steams open her mail, reads her diary, peers into her windows, and hides in her closet. CIA agents notice him; he sees them meet with her and with an anti-Castro Cuban. She hires Adam to work in her garden, and they become friends of sorts. Is theirs an American affair?—<[email protected]>
Washington DC, 1963: the Cuban Missile Crisis is last year's news, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy's young administration is starting to hit its stride. 13 yr old Adam Stafford (Cameron Bright) has his own problems to deal with. At that uncomfortable age, he's a bit of a loner (He has no friends at school and ends up fighting with the only few people who give him company), who spends too much time wrapped up in his own thoughts as he suffers through the daily grind of nuns, bullies, and Pre-puberty girls at Holy Cross School. Until the evening his adolescent yearnings come to life: Adam spies a beautiful naked woman in the house across the street, and his curiosity is inflamed. Catherine Caswell (Gretchen Mol), a stunning thirty -something blond beauty, has just moved in. Captivated, Adam is determined to learn all he can about his new neighbor. He intercepts all mail and uses steam to open and read through letters, before putting them back in their envelopes and gluing them shut. Catherine is an artist, a divorcee and a confidante (if not more) of JFK.
Adam invites student Faith (Laurel Astri) to his house to listen to music and records. He shares his first kiss with her at his house.
Adam offers to landscape Catherine's garden to raise money for his school trip to Europe. At night Adam spies on Catherine using his camera. When his parents come to know that Adam is working for Catherine, they gently try to persuade him that Catherine has a past and that Adam should stay away from her.
One night he watches & photographs JFK enter Catherine's apartment to have sex with her. Adam follows Catherine one day & it seems that CIA is using Catherine to bring JFK around to some of their operations. One night Adam is caught peeping by Cath's ex-hubby Graham (Mark Pellegrino) (who also works for the CIA), who tells her that JFK has a string of women that he has sex with. Graham is outraged when Catherine suggests that their son, was not fathered by Graham.
Adam then follows the CIA agent Cath met earlier & finds him meeting Graham & a Cuban who says that Fidel is laughing at USA. Graham tells the CIA agent that Cath always kept a diary where she wrote everything. That could be evidence that could become a liability later.
Adam is smitten with Cath, but she maintains her distance. Adam steals Cath's dairy from her house (Adam takes it when he and Cath get drunk one night and Adam paints with her. They get playful and smear paint on each other and then Cath falls asleep). The CIA spook is Lucien Carver (James Rebhorn) & informs Cath that JFK would not speak to anyone in CIA about Cuba & that he is in danger (If he refuses action on Cuba, Cuba could deal with him) & that Cath is the CIA's only link to him. Cath says that JFK has stopped all communication with her too. Prisoners from the Bay of Pigs Invasion are returned by Cuba in exchange of $53MM in food and medical supplies.Adam's father Mike comes by speak to Cath after the paint incident, but is met by Lucien, who seemed to know everything about Mike (from how he liked his drink to the fact that he was going away to Texas for a few days). Mike gets scared and backs off.
Mike grounds Adam and tells him to have zero contact with Catherine going forward. Adam reads Cath's diary.Cath tries to warn JFK by going to the white house, but she is not allowed to enter. Soon news trickles in on JFK's assassination. Cath comes by to meet Adam for her diary, but is stop by her mother, who doesn't allow Cath to meet him.
Graham drops by & threatens Cath for the diary. She says she burnt it (he doesn't buy it as Cath has diaries going back to the 3rd grade). Lucien meets Cath & threatens Adam's life if Cath doesn't return the diary. Cath asks Adam for the diary (she meets him at school), but in the meantime Lucien enters Adam's house, threatens his parents (Mike (Noah Wyle) & Adrienne (Perrey Reeves). Lucian searches and finds the diary and burns the book telling Adam that sometimes people get confused with what is really true. Adam finds Catherine at the bottom of stairs dead.
The Catherine Caswell character and the events not involving the wholly fictional Adam Stafford are based on true life Mary Pinchot Meyer. The character CIA Agent Lucian Carver is heavily based on longtime CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton, who was a well-known associate of both Mary Pinchot Meyer and her former husband Cord Meyer who was also a CIA official.
