Brigadoon (2016)

“Once in the Highlands, the Highlands of Scotland, two weary hunters lost their way.” It is this desolate situation which Tommy Albright and Jeff Douglas, two young New Yorkers, are contemplating when the curtain rises on a misty glen in Scotland. As the two exhausted men reflect on what they have forsaken in the States for their present predicament, a lift in the Highland veil reveals to them the awakening village of Brigadoon; a village which comes into being for only one day in each century.

The strained and strange greetings of the villagers bedecked in 18th century costumes, who have gathered in the market square to sell their wares and to discuss the final wedding preparations of Jeannie MacLaren and the boyish Charlie Dalrymple, are softened for Tommy by his encounter with Jeannie’s lovely sister, Fiona, and enlivened for Jeff by his reluctant entanglement with the maid, Meg Brockie.

The blissful occasion is momentarily tinged with gloom when the fate of Brigadoon is threatened by Harry Beaton, Jeannie’s rejected suitor. And Tommy, now burdened with the knowledge of Brigadoon’s secret and enraptured by the gentle charms of the beautiful Fiona, is confronted with the choice of remaining forever at the side of the Scottish lass or returning to the unsatisfying world familiar to him. At the close of the day he is still unable to commit himself without doubt or regret to Fiona and to Brigadoon, and leaves with Jeff for America.

Restless and unhappy in New York, Tommy finally yields to the haunting memory of Fiona and, guided by the faith and strength of his love, finds his way back to Brigadoon. Like Tommy, the audience delights in the whimsical loveliness of the Highlands, and it is with similar reluctance that they exit Brigadoon.