Genre: Drama
Director: Joe Talbot
Writer: Jimmy Ellis
Cast: Lakeith Stanfield, Miles Brown, Brian Tyree Henry, Jasper Pääkkönen, Ryan Eggold, John Magaro, Sunny Suljic, Alyssa Esposito
Plot: A young boy (Miles Brown) stands in the hallway of a house. What seems to be his father (Brian Tyree Henry) stands at the other end looking down at his son.
A man (Lakeith Stanfield) lay, asleep, on the streets in a pile of his own filth. His eyes eventually open to a girl staring at him. As she sees his eyes open, she runs away. The man then gets up and walks back to what appears to be his post, people on the streets clear the path for him. He arrives to his setup, an alley, behind a building. Along with his trashed mattress is an array of charcoal drawings hanging on the building, they are all great drawings but seem to be more abstract. The man sits on his mattress when he hears a chef (Jasper Pääkkönen) yell out to him from the back door of the building. The chef calls him Dion and gives him some food scraps. The chef goes back inside as Dion shoves the food in his mouth.
Cut back to Dion on his mattress later in the day, he begins to draw one of his abstract pictures. He starts to laugh as he draws but the laughter all of a sudden turns into a cry, until he screams out and stops drawing.
Back in the house from the beginning, the boy, a young Dion, climbs atop his kitchen counter to get to the cookie jar, on top of the refrigerator. The cookie jar is surrounded by various liquor bottles. Dion wobbles a bit while on his tippy toes and grabs the jar, however in doing so he knocks over one of the liquor bottles. Dion’s father rushes into the kitchen with an angry look on his face. Dion pleads with his father that he knows he shouldn’t have had the cookies, but the father doesn’t care for that, he’s upset about the liquor bottle being smashed. He grabs Dion from the counter and throws him to the ground, he takes off his belt and begins striking his son with it. We get a close up of Dion’s face, tears falling from his eyes.
We immediately cut back to present day Dion drawing yet another sketch with his charcoal, when suddenly its snaps. The piece in his hand is too small to continue and the larger piece has fallen to the ground and rolled out of sight. Dion begins rubbing the back of his head and stands from his area and sets out into the night to find another pencil. As he walks on the sidewalk, he attempts to get the attention of any person he walks by, but they instantly turn the other way when he comes close. He sees an art supply store with the same charcoal pencils he has using on display. He gets excited as he sees this and attempts to run through the door, he bounces straight off the door as the sign reads CLOSED. He looks on the ground until he finds a rock. He grabs the rock and throws it through the front window of the store, he steps inside and grabs the packet of charcoal pencils. He walks off with a huge smile on his face as the alarm blares in the background. Two policemen (Ryan Eggold and John Magaro) see this happen and yell out to him to stop. He looks back at them with a confused look on his face, he sees that they begin running so he begins running away from them. Another flashback is triggered.
Young Dion opens his front door and runs out of it, never stopping or looking back. He makes it a few blocks away until his father shows up in his busted up car, almost running Dion off the road. He gets out of the car and proceeds to grab Dion by the neck and tosses him into the car.
Back to present day, the officers are still chasing Dion on foot. Dion reaches a bridge, he looks behind him, but loses his footing and tumbles down below. He lands on his back directly below the bridge. He reaches into his jacket pocket for his pencils. They are all completely crushed. Dion takes one look and begins to sob, his howls of agony echo in the clearing underneath the bridge. Dion begins a slow, sad walk back to his setup, people stare at him as he walks defeated. He turns the corner to get to the alley, as he turns down the alley he sees some teenagers messing with his drawings. Dion loses it and chases after the teens. He loses his footing and falls onto a piece of exposed steel fencing. The steel pierces his stomach and comes out through his chest. Dion screams in agony as the teens look back. One teen (Sunny Suljic), who seems the youngest of the lot goes back to the screaming Dion and checks on him. The rest of them run away. The young teen runs to the sidewalk full of people and pleads for help. One woman (Alyssa Esposito) proceeds to help him and runs over to Dion, she begins to call 911.
Flashback: A young Dion sits on a mattress in his home. He has a gun in one hand with the barrel in his mouth. He just can’t seem to pull the trigger. His father opens the door aggressively, clearly drunk with liquor in his hand, he begins verbally abusing his son. He clearly doesn’t see the gun. Dion turns the gun and points it at his father. His father begins to take off his belt and proceeds to pull his pants down. Dion begins to scream and pulls the trigger before his father can lay another hand on him. As the blood pours from his father, he laughs and cries. He grabs a piece of paper and a charcoal pencil and begins drawing. He puts his finger in his father’s blood and puts a bit on his paper. He folds it up and puts it in his jacket pocket before proceeding to run away.
In present day blood pours from Dion. As the phone goes to the woman’s ear he shakes his head, as if to say he wants it to be over. With his last moments of consciousness he asks the boy to reach for a piece of paper in his pocket. The boy opens it. It is a charcoal drawing of a boy and his father holding hands, but the father’s head is erased, an old blood print can be seen throughout all the new blood over the paper. Dion holds the paper in his hand, and dies then and there. An overhead shot is shown and as the credits roll the city is turned into a charcoal drawing.
No comments:
Post a Comment