Genre: Drama/Western
Director: Taylor Sheridan
Writer: James Morgan
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Chris Pine, Nicolas Cage, Grace Van Patten, Bobby Cannavale, Darren Criss, Bruce Greenwood
Plot: Chris (Sam Rockwell) lies next to a hooker in a cheap motel, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He lights up a joint and starts smoking He puts boxers on and looks outside. He complains it’s too hot in here and kicks the air conditioner and it makes a loud, unpleasant noise. He realises he stinks and decides to take a shower. When he comes out, he drops the towel to the ground and he offers a second round to the hooker, still asleep. He kisses her and steps back abruptly, cursing. He takes her pulse and he realises she died. He dresses up quickly and takes all the drugs off the table and puts them into his big in a hurry. He leaves the room and tries to act like nothing happened. He encounters two people and smiles awkwardly. He gets in his beat-up sedan and curses while hitting the steering wheel.
James (Bruce Greenwood) is sitting on his porch in Mesilla, New Mexico, reading his newspaper. His quiet solitude is disturbed by a police car approaching his ranch. He puts his newspaper aside, takes a sip of his morning beer and puts on his cowboy hat to welcome his guest. Robby (Bobby Cannavale), his good friend, waves at him and puts out his cigarette. He goes to the back of his car and he takes out Ben (Chris Pine). He pushes him to the ground and he tells James he found his son drunk at a bar again. He should’ve arrested him for indecent exposure and being drunk in public, but once again, he decided not to. James thanks him for his kindness, bur Robby says he must do something, not only about Ben, but about Chris too. They are both sick and need to get back on the right track, because he won’t be able to get them out of hot water forever. James agrees and thanks Robby again.
Chris is enters the ranch’s premises with his and he freaks out even more when he sees the police car in the entrance. He talks to himself a bit, telling himself to act normal so he won’t get caught. He says he’s ready to come clean if he needs too, noting their found her body fast. He asks himself what did he leave behind that led to his arrest. He grabs his head in the confusion and hits it on the steering wheel. Robby knocks on the window and he asks Chris if he’s alright. He gets out of his trance and says everything is fine. Robby said he was just here to drop off his drunk brother and Chris laughs it off and he says it’s has become a habit at this point. Robby laughs it off and leaves, as Chris lets a sigh of relief. Chris picks up his brother on the ground and makes his way to the front porch to meet his disapproving father. He stares at them with a concerned look before diving back into his newspaper.
When he gets back inside, Chris is cooking breakfast for him and Ben and James asks him what was that all about this morning in his car. He says something happened and he doesn’t want to talk about it. He says he can smell the drugs he did from here, so Robby probably smelled them too. They need to turn it back before one of them dies. Chris opens up to his father about the dead prostitute and James gets angry at Chris, screaming at him and calling him an asshole. His anger wakes up Ben who wants to know what happened, but complains about his headache . He hears about the casualty and he agrees that it’s fucked up. He opens up a beer and James slams it down. He says he’s tired of their behavior and he won’t let them inside until they fix their problems. He wishes them luck a being homeless and Chris says he accepts to go to rehab. James calms down and he says he’s proud of his son and he’ll start looking for a rehab center, but Chris says he has heard about this guy who does wonders from an acquaintance, so he’ll do something with this guy. They hug and he says he should bring Ben along with him, but Ben doesn’t think he has a problem. James warns him he doesn’t want him to get angry again and Ben ignores him and runs away with a six-pack of beer. Chris says he’ll take care of him.
The night has come and Chris loads his luggage in his trunk and Ben’s suitcase too. Ben feel asleep after drinking all-day long again and with James’ help, they carry him into the car. Chris ties up with a rope on his seat and hugs his father before leaving, promising he’ll become a better man and come back a changed man. James certainly hopes so and wishes him luck, he knows it won’t be easy. Chris gives him the directions so he can find them if they decide to call and want to leave. James is surprised to see it’s lost in the middle of nowhere. He watches Chris drive off and goes to sleep in the dark of the night.
Chris drove all night, following the instructions he received on a torn piece of paper. He’s becoming more and more confused with the directions as he is in the middle of the desert, on a dirt road. Ben wakes up in the early morning and wonders what is going on and why the hell is he tied to his seat. Chris orders him to calm down, there are nearly here and he doesn’t want him to freak out. Ben asks him if he brought him to a place where they will treat “his problem” he doesn’t have and he says he doesn’t believe in that shit. Chris says they won’t be locked up, he knows someone who went to the same guy and he came back a changed man, for the better and he hopes they can do that again. Ben says he doesn’t need to change, he’s happy the way he is and he wiggles one of his arm free and tries to hit Chris. He hits the break and leaves the car. Ben breaks himself free and they start fighting in the sand. Ben ends up on top of Chris, but he’s feeling the aftermath of his drinking and he starts to puke. Chris notes that it’s disgusting and he’s a freak. He leans on the car and asks Ben if he really thinks he doesn’t have a problem. Ben keeps throwing up and doesn’t answer. They are surprised by a man, who calls himself Cain (Nicolas Cage). He senses they’re out there looking for him. Chris asks him if he’s the man they are supposed to meet to, and he reads on the piece of paper, get their souls cleansed and Cain says he is. He suggests they stop fighting and get in the car. He will show them his small paradise in the desert and everything will be alright. Ben asks where was he coming from and he says he often follows the dirt road in case someone is looking for him and this time he was right, because they were. Ben says he has a creepy and weird guru vibe to him and he stinks and Cain says he will get used to it, once he digs his way into his soul.
Cain gives Chris direction to go back to his place and he starts to talk about how hard it’s going to be for Ben to change if he doesn’t accept his reality. He has some progress to do if he even wants think about not drinking anymore. Ben notes that he hasn’t chose not to drink anymore and he was forced to come here and that’s why they fought earlier. Ben looks at the back seat and he sees Cain snorting a line of cocaine off his forearm. Ben asks him what the fuck he’s doing and Cain says he’s snorting cocaine and Chris asks him why the hell is he snorting cocaine when he’s supposed to help them with their addiction and Cain says he isn’t clean at all. Chris says that it was a mistake coming here, but Cain convinces him to stay. He says you need to be crazy to leave out in the desert without taking drugs, he knows he’ll be able to change them, so Chris agrees to give it a shot.
They reach Cain’s safe haven, a small village he built with wood and he’s really proud of it. He shows them around, starting by his house. They don’t have a refrigerator, but Ben, who likes his beer warm anyway, steals a couple of bottles. He shows them the dorm room and when they enter, they see two people having sex on a bunk bed. Chris asks who they are and Cain says it’s his children. They stop and get up, not even bothering covering themselves up. It’s Willy (Darren Criss) and Bonbon (Grace Van Patten). Cain says they live with him here and as they can see, they aren’t prude. He suggests they make themselves comfortable and he’ll come and get them once he’s ready to start their treatment. Willy and Bonbon are back at it again and Ben sits on a chair and watches drinking beer. Chris heads outside and looks around the premises. Outside of the two houses, it’s pretty depressing. He sits on a rock and contemplates the sand that spreads as far as his eyes can see.
Cain comes back to get Ben and he asks him if he’s bothered by Bonbon and Willy’s incestuous relationship and before he has the time to answer, Chris, who was coming back inside to get his brother, asks him what the hell is up with that. Cain says he’s a free man who knows no laws and he lets his children do whatever they want. Ben expresses some remorse and he asks him if Bonbon is underage and Cain, says that honestly, he can’t remember. He says it’s time for them to go in the sweat lodge.
Cain strips naked upon entering the sweat lodge and he invites Chris and Ben to do the same, but they categorically refuse. He invites them in anyway and they sit on the ground. They ask what the point of all of this is and he says they are here to sweat their addiction away. He wants them to close their eyes and concentrate on his voice while he guides them on a spiritual journey. He lights a joint and starts smoking pot. Chris opens his eyes and he asks him what he’s doing and he says he isn’t looking to get sober and he finds this exercise so depressing that he needs to smoke to enjoy it. Chris says it isn’t off to a good start, because, right now, he wants to smoke too. He asks him to close his eyes and to follow his voice. He asks them to imagine themselves in their safe space and to lay back and relax.
Ben awakens in the middle of the desert. He contemplates the horizon and uses his cowboy hat to give himself a bit of fresh air. He feels the urge to drink, the heat has taken its toll on him. He looks on the ground and he tries to reach and grab beers, but someone is preventing him, Cain. Ben wants to go back to the camp to drink, so gets in the car just down the hill. Cain gets in the car with him and Ben takes off. He goes fast and he doesn’t know in which direction to go. He drifts and turns around, before settling on a direction. He goes full throttle and his vision starts to get blurry as Cain starts to scream. Ben suddenly wakes up and he finds himself going full throttle with Cain next to him, his head out of the window. Ben hits the brakes and asks Cain where they are and he says Ben felt like driving, so he came with him. Ben says he doesn’t remember how he got there and Cain confesses he doesn’t either, he had some good stuff and it looks like it got to him too.
Chris finds himself half naked in a motel bathroom. His nose is bleeding and he cleans it up while looking at himself in the mirror. His hair is messy and it looks like he hurt his nose and his forehead. He hears a knock at the door and he answers to Bonbon. She starts to kiss him and puts her hands in his boxers. She drags him to the bed, where she attempts to make out with him, but he stops her dead in her tracks. She asks him how he got here and she says it doesn’t matter. He asks her how old she is and she again, says it doesn’t matter. Willy bursts in the room and he says they need to bounce, quickly. They leave the motel in a hurry and he asks them where they are in Mesilla, New Mexico. They live so far away from civilisation that they need to run errands frequently and that’s why they are here. Chris asks why he is here and he says he doesn’t remember anything. Bonbon says he was high as a kite and he really wanted to have sex with her and she obliged, so Willy drove them here while buying groceries. They’re heading back to the compound now.
Robby was called to the motel by its owner because she suspected there was prostitution involving minors happening at the motel. She points to him the room Chris and Bonbon were in and he goes over there. He inspects the room and doesn’t find anything abnormal, but when he gets in the bathroom, he finds blood in the sink and on a towel. He collects the blood and bags the towel and he sends it to the laboratory in Albuquerque for analysis.
When Chris gets back with Willy and Bonbon, he looks for his brother across the compound. He finds Cain doing yoga and he asks him if he saw Ben and he says he didn’t. He asks him why did he drugged them in the sweat lodge, because he thinks it’s counterintuitive for people in rehab. Cain drops his pose instead, asks Chris when was the last time he had sex, when was the last time he did hard drugs. Chris can’t answer because he doesn’t know what drugs he gave him in the sweat lodge and Cain says it’s nothing dangerous for him, he takes it everyday and he’s still alive and healthy. Chris admits that Bonbon tried to have sex with him and Cain laughs and he says she may be addicted to it too and he winks. Chris leaves him alone and tries to look for his brother again.
Ben is sitting on a rock, looking at the landscape, his eyes are closed, sweat dripping down his forehead. He has flashbacks to times in his life he’d rather forget. He uses his alcoholism to forget things and now that he isn’t drinking, he remembers them. He thinks back at a night, where he was coming back from a night out with his girlfriend and he thought she was too flirty with a man at the restaurant. He called her a whore, he called her everything that crossed his mind. She told him he was crazy and paranoid and he started to beat her. He beat her again the other night. The following day, he came home and he her in bed with the guy. He beat the shit out of him and her turn came once the guy ran away. A couple of minutes later, he was arrested and Robby drove him to the county jail. Ben is now crying. Chris, who found his brother, reaches over and he asks him what’s wrong. Ben tells him he can remember now and he feels ashamed of what he did. Chris says it’s alright, they all have things they’d rather forget. He knows Ben is a good guy, he was always there for him. Ben says he needs to romp and Chris agrees to join him. They get in a car and drive at full speed in the desert drifting. While they are in the car, they forget about all their worries and bad memories. They are free. Cain looks on from where they were before, and he smiles.
Robby is called into his office because he received the lab results from Albuquerque. He makes of big thing of finding a potential pedophile and he opens the envelope to do the grand reveal. Instead of saying a name, he starts cursing. Chris’ blood was found in the bathroom. He leaves in a hurry and heads for James’ ranch to try and find Chris.
A couple of days later, Ben, Cain, Bonbon and Willy are out to do a group activity, but Chris is missing. Willy goes back inside the dorm and he finds Chris curled up in his bunk bed shaking. Willy approaches him and asks if he’s alright, but Chris doesn’t answer. He’s drenched in sweat. Willy goes outside and he asks his father for help. They carry Chris and put him down in the sweat lodge. Ben caught a glimpse of his brother and he saw he isn’t feeling well. He wants to get him out of the sweat lodge so he can receive proper medical attention, but Cain prevents him from doing so, saying Chris’ reaction is perfectly natural, before he’s purging himself from the hard drugs in his body and the sweat lodge will accelerate the process. Willy will stay here to keep an eye on him. He has done this before and he will do it again. Cain reaffirms Chris is not in danger and Ben has nothing to worry about.
Moments later, Will crawls next to Chris, naked. He tells him he has nothing to worry about and he’s doing a good job. Chris wants none of it and he kicks Willy away. Willy notes that it’s nothing sexual, he just wants to fight the heat, but Chris has gone somewhere else, back to when he was a child. His father, James, used to crawl up next to him, just like that and he couldn’t move. It hurt, a lot. It happened sometimes, but not too often. It started after their mom left. He was told by James that he shouldn’t talk about it with anyone and he did. In the meantime, Willy crawled back next to him. Chris regains consciousness abruptly, screaming to his dad to let him go. Willy jumps, scared and understands what happened. He sits down next to Chris and he asks him if he wants to talk about it. Chris, still all sweaty and shaking from his recovery, accepts, as soon as Willy gets his scrotum out of his face.
Robby pulls over in front of James’ ranch and he finds him taking care of a horse in the barn. James is happy to see him, but Robby says it’s not a friendly visit. He found Chris’ blood in a motel room where the owner testified he was a minor and given Chris’ history, he suspects it may have been of sexual nature. James can’t believe what he’s hearing and urges Robby to do something about it, to cover it up like he always does. Robby says he knows they didn’t have it easy in life, they were both pretty fucked up by the loss of their mother, and Ben did some time, but this is just too big to cover up. He asks James to tell him where Chris is and James goes back inside to give the directions Chris gave him. He asks Robby if he can follow him, so he can be there to see how it unfolds. Robby accepts and tells James he’s sorry.
Ben is back in the dorm room and pacing around, he can’t help but to think about his brother and the state he left him this morning. Bonbon is tired of seeing him like that and she leaves the dorm. Ben sees her talking to Cain outside and she runs back in the dorm. Ben asks her if he can see his brother and he can’t. Bonbon says she was tasked to get his mind of everything and he should just succumb to her charms and have a good time. He’s basically cured, he hasn’t had a drink for a while now and he doesn’t feel the urge to drink again, so he should at least enjoy his time here while he’s waiting for his brother. She kisses him and Ben has another flashback to the time he was violent towards his girlfriend and he pushes her away. She lands on the ground awkwardly and she doesn’t know what to say. Cain enters the dorm, thinking he could watch them having sex, but it’s a whole other scene.
Ben runs outside and into the sweat lodge. He sees Chris and Willy sitting on the ground. Chris has been crying and Willy cried with him. When Chris sees his brother, he starts to cry again and he runs into his arm. He says it’s time for them to leave, they have exorcised their demons. Ben promises they are going to leave tomorrow, after getting a good night’s rest. Ben says Chris knows why he was drinking, but had no idea why Chris was using. Chris says it’s too long to explain and perhaps he’ll elaborate on another day, he’s suffered enough for today. He thanks Willy for listening to him all day long and they share another hug. Before they leave, Ben asks Chris if he would like to go in the car once again to have fun and Chris would be delighted to, it would do him tremendous good.
The night has come and Ben and Chris have a hard time sleeping, as Bonbon and Willy are having sex. Cain is inside his house smoking whatever he has on his hands. Something outside catches his attention. Two cars are approaching. Cain hides his drugs, but the cars are already there. Robby is knocking on his door and Cain answers. He claims he is here to get Chris and Ben. Cain confirms they are on the premises and he cured them, they were about to leave. He says they weren’t here against their will. Cain asks Robby to follow him, he will introduce him to his children. Robby enters the dorm, only to see Bonbon and Willy having sex. James is soon to follow Robby. Upon seeing their father and the reason of their addiction, Chris and Ben run away in the chaos when Robby is arresting Bonbon, Willy and Cain for incest. Chris and Ben scream at James to chase them and James meets with them in the sweat lodge. They tell him how bad a dad he was and the reason they have let him down for all those years is because of the abuse he made them endure. When he got Robby to drop the charges against them, it wasn’t for their own good, but he was covering his own ass, because he knew they would snitch on him for molesting them. James says it’s not true and he wants to justify his actions, but Chris and Ben leave. They take the car they used to vent their frustration with and drive off the desert in the middle of the night, finally free of their demons.
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