Mount Airy, Philadelphia, 1989. Sarah Goins, a college professor with a thriving career and close-knit academic community, is eager to draw her boyfriend Mike Flannagan deeper into her world. But Mike, a groundskeeper at a local seminary, resists, instead keeping her at arm’s length as he struggles to come to terms with a past haunted by loss.
Late one night, Mike crosses paths with Domenic Gallo, a neighborhood barber who has been injured in a mugging. As Mike helps the elderly man, Domenic tends to his own painful history, and the two strike up an unlikely friendship built around mutual understanding of each other’s grief.
When outside forces drive Sarah and Mike further apart, Sarah seeks out Domenic in an attempt to salvage her floundering relationship. Like Mike, she is drawn into the world of Domenic’s barbershop and the new sense of community it offers.
A series of crises and secrets threatens the fragile balance Sarah, Mike, and Domenic have created, and soon the trio find themselves grappling with the meaning of family and class, loyalty and faith. Told in alternating perspectives against the vibrant backdrop of one of Philadelphia’s most distinctive neighborhoods, MORTAL THINGS is a powerful reflection on the ties that can bind or break us.
