Steven Maler's first feature film made it's premiere at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. Autumn Heart is a heavy melodrama set in 1970 about three daughters who go looking for their long lost brother. What they find is an opened Pandora's box about themselves. Sixteen years have passed since Ann (Tyne Daly) gave up her son and her husband. In that time, she raised only her three older daughters. Now Ann has had a heart attack and asked these three hard-living women (played by Ally Sheedy, Marceline Hugot and Marla Sucharetza) to find their long-lost brother somewhere in Boston. What they discover is a brother studying at Harvard and their estranged, upper class father. Now these hard-talking women must wrestle with their emotions about their own feelings of abandonment, as part of coming to terms with the realities of their lives. Can they also convince their brother to come back and visit? Can they forgive their mother for the secrets she withheld? Can a family heal the wounds of time? ~ Chris Gore, All Movie Guide