Marjorie Morningstar (film) - Synopsis

Synopsis

Marjorie Morgenstern begins the film as a student at Hunter College and the girlfriend of an eligible young man who attends her family's synagogue. Her parents are happy with her choice of mate, and one evening while they flirt in front of the Morgenstern cooperative apartment, her mother Rose Morgenstern (Claire Trevor) tells her father, Arnold (Everett Sloane), that she hopes the two kids marry.

Marjorie breaks up with the boy, though, and that summer attends a summer camp in the Adirondacks as a camp counselor. One night, Marjorie and her friend Marsha Zelenko (Carolyn Jones) sneak across to a Borscht Belt resort for adults called South Wind. There she is caught by resort owner Maxwell Greech (George Tobias) who is going to get her in trouble when the resort social director Noel Airman (Gene Kelly) vouches for her as a guest. She begins to work at the resort and begin a relationship with Airman and a friendship with playwright Wally Wronkin (Martin Milner). The latter wants a relationship with Marjorie, but she's tempted by the tragic Airman, who meets the disapproval of her parents. According to them, as demonstrated in a lunch scene with Airman, he lacks the prospects that a true professional should aspire to. Airman, whose original name was the more Jewish Ehrman, renames Marjorie as well from Morgenstern to Morningstar.

When Marjorie's Uncle Sampson (Ed Wynn) dies of a heart attack at the camp, the brief affair is interrupted and Marjorie goes back to the city. There she meets a doctor, with whom she quickly breaks up when Airman returns to find her. He declares that his love for her has convinced him to attempt to become respectable. Marjorie tells her mother, and Rose insists that Marjorie bring him to a Passover meal. "Not Passover, mother. He’s not very religious. He doesn’t believe in those things," Marjorie says. Rose answers, "He doesn’t believe in those things... you’re going to get married. How are you going to raise your children?" Airman attends the Passover meal, when a dramatic eruption occurs. In the midst of the meal, he leaves and Marjorie follows him. She is concerned he's bored, and he says, "I wasn’t bored. I was disturbed, deeply. I couldn’t help thinking of all the things I’ve missed in life. Family, your kind of family. Faith, tradition. All the things I’ve been ridiculing all the time. That’s why I couldn’t take it anymore. I love you very much, Marjorie Morgenstern."

Airman gets a job at an advertising firm and seems to be doing well for himself. But one week he disappears, doesn't show up to work, and refuses to take Marjorie's phone calls. She goes to his apartment to check up on him and finds him drunk with a strange woman in his apartment. He has decided he cannot stand the professional lifestyle and wants to be an artist. The impetus for his desire to change careers is the success of Wally Wronkin on Broadway - the playwright has launched on a series of hits and Airman is consumed with jealousy. Airman and Marjorie fight, but soon reconcile as Wronkin's investors meet with Airman to invest in his play. Despite the investment, Airman's play is panned by critics. "We were crucified," someone explains to Marjorie, and their relationship is unable to survive Airman's incredible failure.

In the final scene, Marjorie is back at South Wind. Greech notes of her that she's done some growing up. In the final shot, we see her board a bus and sit down. It is unclear where she is heading, but when we see her look in the rearview mirror, we see Wronkin in the back of the bus. He smiles. Though the film ends there, the suggestion is that they will embark on the relationship Wronkin had been hoping for from the beginning.