Genre: Drama/Tragedy
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Writer: Chad Taylor
Cast: Florence Pugh, Molly Parker, Thomas Haden Church, Regina King, Wayne Knight
Plot: Kim Newsome (Molly Parker) goes about her normal routine in the state penitentiary. She is a model prisoner through and through, as exemplified in her role as the prison librarian. She is also very well-liked among her fellow prisoners given her optimistic outlook on life and the positive effect she has on them.
Cheyenne Newsome (Florence Pugh) is at college for law school, now five months pregnant with a child she plans to raise on her own. She checks her calendar for the month and sees a date that she has circled. It reads “parole”. She packs up to leave for the weekend.
When she gets home, she shares some delightful small talk with her dad Jack (Thomas Haden Church), who asks how the pregnancy is coming along. He assumes she is in town for her regular check-in with the doctor. After this, she brings up the upcoming parole hearing. Jack is taken aback as this breaks an unspoken agreement they have about not discussing this topic. She reveals that she isn’t as sheltered as he thought she is - she’s has been reading bits and pieces of information on the subject over the last few months since learning that she would be becoming a mother herself. Chey says she feels like she is now old enough to face her past. She wants to attend the hearing. Jack shakes his head in disappointment - as if he had failed her in some way. He contemplates saying something about her decision but chooses to go drink alone instead.
We check in on Kim, who is getting ready to leave for her parole hearing. She is very courteous to her guard officers and smiles through most of the process.
At the parole hearing, Cheyenne sits in the back of the courtroom. When Kim is escorted in, her and Chey share a glance but Kim doesn’t recognize her (nor does she have any reason to). At home, Jack drinks alone and turns off both his TV and radio - preferring not to follow the proceedings. The judge commends Kim on her spotless record in prison. Not only has she displayed good behavior but she’s gone above and beyond that. She seems to have clearly been reformed since her crimes of years earlier. The judge informs Kim that the court has granted her parole on the condition that she regularly drug recovery meetings. Kim smiles and quietly thanks the judge. On her way out, Chey sees a woman (Regina King) also sitting in the back, holding back tears.
When she returns home, Cheyenne tells Jack that Kim has been granted release. At this point in the day, he is in a drunken stupor. She says that she has thought about it and that she is going to seek out her mother to talk through their past. Jack’s drunken indifference turns to a drunken rage. He lashes out at Chey for her questionable decisions as of late. Is this what her expensive liberal education is buying her? Some warped sense of forgiveness? He thought he raised her to know better. She is annoyed and hurt by his comments. She grabs some of her things and says she is going to stay with a friend tonight. When she leaves, Jack sits alone and cries for two minutes straight.
After being outside of civilian life for 19 years, Kim takes some time getting her bearings. She does some minor decorating to her apartment to make it feel more like a home. She goes to the grocery store for a routine stop, something she used to do weekly but hasn’t done in ages. She gets some looks here and there - as older folks remember her face from when it was in the news. She stops by the park, where she sits on a bench and just takes it all in - eventually leading to her crying. This is a rare break from the happy demeanor that she is used to exuding.
When Cheyenne finally shows up back at the house, Jack is waiting for her arrival in the living room. She tries to go to her room without conversing but he somberly asks her to sit down and talk. She continues towards her room but when he asks again, the heart-wrenching tremble in his voice causes her to reverse course. She takes a seat across from him.
He prefaces by saying that everything he has done in his life felt like the right thing to do - even if others questioned him. He’s made his fair share of bad choices over the years but he was always trusting his gut. He wants her to hear this from him and not anyone else. Chey looks confused. Jack can barely get out his next statement but he finally gets it out. He tells Chey that he is not her real father.
When he was younger, he was a bit reckless and always a bit jealous of his younger brother Pete, who seemed to have it all together. Jack was on the verge of entering rehab when something terrible happened to Pete. Pete's wife Kim, high on over-the-counter drugs, drove across the median and got in a head-on collision - killing 2 of their 3 children. Somehow she survived, and by the Grace of God, her newborn child did too. What did Pete ever do to deserve that cruel punishment from God? In the aftermath, Pete struggled with his grief. In his suicide note, he told Jack that he wanted him to raise Cheyenne and shield her from the pain Kim caused the family.
At this point, they are both in tears and she gives Jack a long hug. He says that he made the decision to call himself her father so that she wouldn’t grow up not knowing either of her parents. He apologizes for any pain his lie may have caused her but he thought he was doing the right thing. She says he doesn’t need to apologize and instead thanks him for caring so much about her over the years. He says that if talking to Kim will give Cheyenne the closure she needs, then she should do what she needs to do.
Cheyenne has a regular check-in with her OB doctor where she learns that she is having a girl. After this, she goes to the public library and starts to go through the newspaper archives covering the accident. 21 years earlier, Kim Newsome was the prototypical suburban housewife with a burgeoning nuclear family. On that fateful day, she was driving a van with her three kids in the backseat. She claimed that she weaved into the other lane because of animal in the roadway and crashed full-speed with a truck being driven by a man with his daughter in the passenger’s seat. Of the 6 people involved in the accident, only Kim and her newborn baby Cheyenne were the survivors. Chey sees a picture of the man in the truck and his family - connecting that the woman she saw at court was that man’s wife.
In the investigation, the lack of key witnesses became a crucial roadblock for the prosecution. Whether or not Kim’s driving was intentional or accidental became a topic of debate and one that was hard to prove. The one thing they did have was that she shouldn’t have been driving on the meds that she was taking, which she was receiving to battle her postpartum depression. She ended up being convicted of vehicular manslaughter but the body count, medication issues, and Kim’s lack of convincing remorse led to a punishment of 25 years with possibility of parole.
Cheyenne sits shaking, having now gotten the full scope of the story unlike the bits and pieces she had previously exposed herself to. She reads back over the “postpartum depression” line over and over. She is now experiencing a new kind of grief - one where she feels partially responsible for the accident that occurred. She then wonders about what if the prosecution was right and that this was a suicide attempt. Was there ever an animal in the road? Did she ever try to get back on the correct side? There’s only one person who knows the answer.
She shows up at Kim’s doorstep and takes a moment to compose herself before knocking. She knocks again but still no answer. We see that Kim is at her first mandatory drug rehabilitation meeting. When offered the opportunity to open up, Kim is refreshingly honest about the ways that her chemical dependency on drugs have affected her life.
Cheyenne stops back by the library and finds a directory. She then arrives at the home of Monica Parker (Regina King) - the woman she saw at the parole hearing. Cheyenne introduces herself as Kim’s daughter who survived the crash and was wondering if she could talk with Monica about how she coped with the accident. Monica is very hesitant as it is not a subject she likes to discuss often. However, sensing Cheyenne’s genuine concern and knowing that she is a victim of this ordeal, she invites her in. Monica opens up to Cheyenne about the devastating grief that she experienced in the days, months, and years since. She is very religious person, herself, and has always reasoned that it is out of her control.
Chey asks why she attends Kim’s court hearings and she says that she feels it is a due diligence to her husband and daughter. But, again, she knows that all decisions are out of her control. Monica then recalls a chance encounter she had a few years back. She had a minor workplace accident that wasn’t a huge deal but required EMT assistance. Upon meeting the paramedic, she came to find out that the same paramedic was the first responder to the crash years before. In some ways, he seemed even more affected that she was. She felt a connection with him and now sends him Christmas cards each year, staying briefly in touch. Cheyenne is fascinated by this and asks if she can have his contact information. Monica obliges and Chey thanks her for letting her talk this all out. Monica asks when Cheyenne is expecting and she tells her two months from now. She smiles and tells Chey that she can tell that baby’s mom has a good head on her shoulders and not to let the past dictate her future.
Cheyenne next meets with the paramedic who Monica talked about. From the outset, Barry Nathan (Wayne Knight) seems worn down. He admits that he is ready for retirement but life has had other plans. He admits that he is surprised to see Cheyenne here but he still recognizes those eyes from when she was a baby. He is still very traumatized from the things he saw that day. No human should have to see the stuff he saw that day. But finding Cheyenne was the one saving grace of that day. This brings Cheyenne to tears herself and she thanks him for his work that day. His promptness that day saved her life. He tells her he was just doing his job. His last remark is that it was a shame to hear about her father after the crash. Nothing can prepare you for that kind of grief.
When she gets back home, Jack offers to take Cheyenne for a drive. She takes him up on the offer. He ends up driving her to the cemetery and he shows her the headstone for her father. Cheyenne begins to cry and Jack puts his arm around her. She finally asks the thing she’s been afraid to ask all along - nearly her entire life now: does he think her mom did it on purpose? “Honestly? No. I’m a cynical man, myself, but I’d have to seriously reconsider how I view this world if someone from here was capable of doing something like that. So I’ve convinced myself that the answer’s always been no - to save myself more than anything.” She tells Jack that she is having a girl and he cracks a smile and gives her a hug.
Cheyenne shows up at Kim’s apartment and she answers this time. Kim politely dismisses any visitors at the moment for stopping mid-sentence and looking at Chey in awe. She starts shaking her head no and shuts the door. Through the door, Chey promises that she is there with no ill intent and just wants to talk. She takes a seat next to the door and talks about how she always wondered what her mom was like growing up. What’s her favorite food? Hobbies? Dreams in life? And she still wonders about that at 21. Especially as an expecting mother herself.
On the other side of the door, Kim finally responds and answers the questions that Cheyenne had - about her favorite things, hobbies, and dreams. She then talks about how things don’t always turn out as planned and the unexpected effects that motherhood had on her, both physically and mentally. Finally, she gives Cheyenne some advice regarding her pregnancy. As she talks, Chey has her head nestled against the door, holding back tears. She can’t find the strength or purpose to ask the questions she came here to ask. Maybe it’s best she didn’t know?
Kim opens the door, finds Chey on the ground, and helps her up. She slides her hand up and down Chey's shoulder. Kim says that Cheyenne shouldn’t have come here but she’s glad she did.
At dusk, a van drives alone along a two-lane highway. A song fades in and out on the radio as kids sing along in the backseat. The driver, Kim, looks into her rearview mirror and adjusts it down enough to see the kids having a grand old time. She looks over at the baby in the carseat next to her and then looks ahead into the setting sun.
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