Full Custody
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Director: David Gordon Green
Writer: John Malone
Cast: Shane Gillis, Melanie Lynskey, Vale Cooper, Haley Joel Osment, Marin Ireland, Chi McBride, Laurie Metcalf, Tim Baltz
Plot: Jimmy McCabe (Shane Gillis) wakes up in a recliner. His phone alarm blares from across the room. After a quick swig of leftover warm beer from the night before, he grabs his tool belt and lumbers out the door. In the work van, his buddy Lenny (Haley Joel Osment) is already lighting a cigarette and bitching about the site foreman screwing up the supply order again. They pull up to the jobsite - an unfinished strip mall. During their first of many smoke breaks, Jimmy and Lenny sit in the back of the van eating gas station sandwiches. Lenny begins ranting about a guy who brought cordless tools to a wired job. Jimmy's phone rings - unknown number. Lenny encourages him to answer it to mess with the scammer on the other end. Lenny eggs Jimmy on, but the call turns out to be a serious one. Jimmy's sister Tina has overdosed again and has been admitted to court-ordered rehab. Her daughter, Sadie, needs a guardian. Jimmy thinks there must be a mistake - surely he can't be at the top of the list to take custody.
Later, in court, Jimmy stands before a judge looking like he dressed in the dark. Tina (Marin Ireland) appears via video call from rehab, barely upright. She tells the judge that Jimmy's the only family she has left in town. Jimmy reluctantly signs the custody paperwork, trying to joke his way through the discomfort. Afterward, Jimmy waits at Children Protective Services, slouched and restless. A case worker, Darren (Tim Baltz), finally appears, apologetic for making Jimmy wait. Sadie (Vale Cooper) enters. Sadie barely remembers Jimmy. She stares at him like she's trying to figure out if this is a punishment or a test. Darren hands over a folder and walks through basic instructions - school starts tomorrow, appointments are listed, call if anything serious comes up. Out in the parking lot, Jimmy unlocks the truck. Jimmy quickly brushes fast food wrappers on the floor, clearing a seat for Sadie. Darren jogs up, reminding Jimmy about the school intake meeting first thing in the morning. Jimmy gives a half-assed salute and drives off.
Jimmy parks crooked in the school parking lot and finishes brushing donut crumbs off his shirt. Sadie's sitting silently in the passenger seat. Inside, they meet Sadie's new 5th grade teacher - Angela Morgan (Melanie Lynskey). She's warm but direct, offering Sadie a smile and welcoming her to the class. Jimmy tries to charm her with a bad joke about skipping 5th grade because he couldn't pass it twice. Angela doesn't laugh, instead asking Jimmy if Sadie has any learning or behavior plans. Jimmy scratches his head, clearly not knowing the answers. He then admits that he's not totally sure what Sadie needs yet, but he's committed to figuring it out. Angela thanks Jimmy for showing up and leads Sadie to her seat.
At home, Jimmy flips through Sadie’s school folder like it’s written in another language. There’s a reading log, a lunch form, and a sheet with a smiley face that says “Important!” in red. He sets it all down and opens a beer. Sadie’s on the couch, doing homework in silence. Jimmy asks if she wants pizza or just some stuff from the freezer that’s been in there since Obama was president. They end up with chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs and a bag of stale pretzels. Jimmy tosses ketchup packets onto her plate like he’s proud. She doesn’t complain, but doesn’t talk either. Later, Jimmy tries to bond by putting on a movie he calls a classic. It’s Road House - Patrick Swayze throwing kicks in a bar while music blares and bodies fly. Jimmy quotes lines before they happen and laughs hard at the throat-ripping scene. Sadie just stares, visibly uncomfortable. After a few minutes, she asks if they can watch something with less punching and nipples. Jimmy grumbles but changes it, mumbling that Swayze was a damn artist. Later, he checks in on her while she’s brushing her teeth. She’s using her finger and hotel toothpaste. Jimmy freezes — he forgot to buy a toothbrush. He offers his, holding it out like a peace treaty. She just closes the door.
Jimmy shows up to Sadie's school fundraiser night, awkward in a wrinkled flannel, clearly unaware there's a business casual expectation. Parents and staff fill the gym. Angela is running the raffle, trying to keep things organized as pleasantly as possible. Jimmy tries to blend in. Principal Fitzgibbons (Chi McBride) asks Jimmy to help draw the raffle numbers. Jimmy makes a joke into the mic about rigging the raffle like the 2020 presidential election that draws some scattered laughter. He accidentally pulls a prize ticket out of the wrong bucket and hands a $100 gift card to a confused kid, sparking a small argument among parents. Angela quickly steps in and takes the mic back. Jimmy slinks off and crushes a juice box like it’s a beer. As the event winds down, Jimmy and Angela cross paths again. He tries to apologize for messing up the raffle. She smirks - it's clear she's both amused and mildly annoyed, which, is practically flirtation.
Later that week, Jimmy tries to make dinner for Sadie - real food, not frozen junk. The sauce explodes, the pasta sticks, and the fire alarm goes off. Sadie helps without being asked, muttering instructions like a tiny Gordon Ramsay. Jimmy listens, then gets overly proud when the spaghetti is even halfway edible. They eat on the couch, watching a cooking show while Jimmy critiques everything - even though he only just learned what al dente means. Sadie laughs for the first time, and Jimmy notices. He tries to ask how school is going, but she shrugs it off. He keeps it light and tells her if she gets straight As, he’ll buy her a PS5 - which she immediately demands in writing. The evening ends with Jimmy tucking her in - not well, but he tries. She lets him. He sits outside her door for a minute after, smiling.
That same night, across town, Angela walks into a small, dim space and locks the door behind her. She changes clothes quickly and efficiently - out of her teacher gear and into sleek, black leather and vinyl. She’s Mistress Andromeda now. Her client waits, eyeing the paddle on the table. Angela’s face is calm, professional. When he stammers about forgetting the usual setup, she cuts him with a flat, practiced tone. The session unfolds with mechanical rhythm. Angela walks him through light punishment and a few lines of dry humiliation, delivered more like observations than insults. When he begins to veer into emotional territory, she pauses and redirects him firmly back toward his punishment - smacking him repeatedly with a paddle.
Jimmy pulls into the school’s pickup lane, clearly late, honking inappropriately as a crossing guard glares. He’s still wearing his work hoodie, dusted with drywall, and has a soda in one hand and a chicken tender in the other. Sadie climbs into the truck with a groan, muttering that he’s embarrassing her again. Before he can respond, Angela walks by, shepherding a line of students toward the buses. Jimmy tries to act casual but shouts her name a little too loud. Angela turns, clearly reluctant to chat but too polite to ignore him. He tells her thanks for not kicking him out of the PTA thing, then awkwardly asks if teachers get some kind of bonus for dealing with idiots like him. As she walks off, Jimmy calls after her that if she ever needs drywall patched, he’s her guy. Angela keeps walking but tosses a half-smile over her shoulder. In the truck, Sadie groans and tells Jimmy to never flirt again in public. Jimmy shrugs, tells her she’s just jealous he still has it, and nearly rear-ends a minivan as they pull away.
Jimmy’s sitting at the kitchen table, half-dressed, eating microwaved taquitos when the doorbell rings. Jimmy opens the door mid-chew to find Darren, the CPS case worker, who steps inside without waiting. Darren's eyes dart across the living room - laundry on the couch, a broken ceiling fan hanging at an angle, a bottle of Gatorade doubling as an ashtray. Jimmy makes a vague effort to kick a pizza box under the coffee table. Darren explains he’s here for a quick check-in and starts asking about Sadie’s daily routine. Jimmy bullshits through answers, claiming she wakes up at 6AM, reads for fun, and brushes her teeth like a damn dentist. Darren raises an eyebrow, clearly not buying it, especially when Sadie wanders into the room wearing pajama pants and eating Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Darren gently reminds him that progress will be reviewed soon and that the court wants to see a stable and safe living environment.
Jimmy lounges on the couch, shirtless, eating a lukewarm burrito while a rerun of Cops blares in the background - some shirtless guy on-screen is getting tackled in a Waffle House parking lot while Jimmy eats a gas station burrito. The phone buzzes. It’s Tina. He groans, wipes his hand on his sweatpants, and answers. Tina launches into an erratic, overly upbeat monologue. She swears things are looking up, insisting she’s totally clean. She drops that she’s currently without a place to sleep and just needs a safe landing for a few nights. Jimmy leans his head back, closes his eyes, and mutters that he knew this was coming. He tells her she can crash, but it’s temporary and she better not bring any junkie nonsense into Sadie’s life. Tina brushes it off with vague promises and a mention of how much she misses her daughter.
A loud, erratic knock rattles Jimmy’s door just past midnight. He opens it groggily, and there stands Tina - hollow-eyed and jittery. She immediately begins rambling about how some counselor at the rehab kept judging her aura. Jimmy cuts her off, asks straight-up how she got out and whether the court signed off on it. Tina deflects. Jimmy narrows his eyes - something’s off. Her pupils are huge, she can’t sit still, and she keeps scratching at her arms. He points this out bluntly. She shrugs it off, jokes that it’s just caffeine. Jimmy doesn’t buy it. Sadie peeks out from her room, sleepy and confused. She sees Tina and stiffens. When she sees the condition her mother is in, Sadie quietly backs into her room and shuts the door. Jimmy sees that and tells Tina she needs to leave right now. When she scoffs, he raises his voice for the first time: if she’s using, and she’s here against court orders, she’s risking his custody and he won’t let that happen. He threatens to call the cops. Tina tries to guilt-trip him, whimpering that she’s got nowhere else. Jimmy doesn't flinch and slams the door behind her.
Jimmy and Lenny stare up at the partially disassembled ceiling fan in the living room. The room is quiet - Sadie's already asleep - and they're trying to keep their voices down while arguing about wiring. Lenny's mostly just hanging out, occasionally handing Jimmy the wrong screwdriver. To kill time, he pulls out his phone and scrolls a local sexual classifieds thread, chuckling at the weird ads. Lenny gets distracted by a dominatrix ad - it's a masked woman in latex boots and a corset standing next to a guy in a dog collar. Lenny starts chuckling that he found a woman just Jimmy's type for him and shows him the screen. Jimmy gives the phone a glance and freezes. He grabs the phone. There's something familiar about the woman to him. Then it dawns on him - it's Angela. He knows the picture is definitely Sadie's teacher, but he doesn't tell Lenny. The fan wires spark slightly as Jimmy loses his focus.
Jimmy attends a PTA meeting in the school library. He spots Angela across the room, but struggles to meet her eyes when she greets him. She starts discussing Sadie’s reading scores and a story she wrote about a turtle with depression. Jimmy nods along distractedly - picturing her in her dominatrix outfit from the ad the entire time.
During dinner, Sadie tells Jimmy that a classmate invited her for a sleepover and asks if she can go. Jimmy is thrown and immediately starts rattling off questions - where this girl lives, who her parents are, whether they keep the thermostat at a weird temperature. Sadie assures Jimmy her friend is normal. Jimmy is nervous, so he makes up a fake rule about lava lamps - telling Sadie that it's a red flag if the family owns more than one lava lamp. After Sadie's gone to bed, Jimmy sends Angela a message asking if the classmate's parents seem alright. Angela replies with a friendly thumbs up.
Jimmy’s watching Sadie attempt to glue googly eyes onto a pinecone for school a school project when there’s a knock. He opens the door to find Darren, clipboard in hand. Darren tells Jimmy that he's not there for another inspection - instead he has news. Tina has officially skipped out on rehab and now has a warrant out for her arrest. Darren then adds that Sadie's clearly thriving under Jimmy's care - happy, showing up to school, eating right - and if Jimmy wants it, he’s ready to recommend full custody. Jimmy is clearly taken aback by the news. Darren tells Jimmy to take some time to think it over, but not too much - Sadie deserves stability.
Later that day, Jimmy drives Sadie out to see Nancy McCabe (Laurie Metcalf) - his mom, who Sadie barely knows. Nancy greets them with a bear hug - warm and loud from the first second. She calls Jimmy her baby the second he walks in the house. Sadie watches with mild amusement as her grandma dotes on Jimmy. Nancy tries hard to not badmouth Tina in front of Sadie, but it’s obvious she’s been burned by her daughter more than once. Jimmy quietly tells Nancy the news from CPS. Nancy tells Jimmy that if he wants to give Sadie a real home, now’s his chance. Sadie plays with Nancy's dog after dinner. Nancy can tell there is something else on Jimmy's mind. He admits that he has a crush on Sadie's teacher - who also just happened to moonlight as a dominatrix. Nancy raises an eyebrow, smirks, and says it’s about damn time he fell for someone interesting. Jimmy grumbles about how weird it is, but Nancy shrugs it off. She reminds him that he's been with worse women.
After school one day, Jimmy lingers outside Angela’s classroom as the hallway clears. Sadie is playing nearby with friends. As Angela exits the classroom, she finds Jimmy. Unsure how else to begin, Jimmy asks to talk about Sadie. Angela instantly shifts into attentive teacher mode, but Jimmy waves it off and awkwardly stammers into his real point: this isn’t about Sadie, it’s about her. He wants to take her out. She starts to respond, but he blurts out that he knows about the dominatrix thing. Her expression freezes. Jimmy immediately clarifies that he doesn’t care - he liked her before he found out. As she lightens up, Jimmy keeps rambling. She offers to go out on a date with him if he'll just stop talking. They agree on a night. As they walk out toward the playground to find Sadie.
For his first date with Angela, Jimmy pulls up to the restaurant - an old-school Italian place - a little early. He waits in his truck plucking lint off his shirt. When Angela arrives, he gets out to meet her and makes an offhand joke about how he left the ball gag at home. During dinner, when Jimmy asks about her day job, she talks briefly about her students, then turns it around, asking how he ended up working with dry wall. Jimmy shares a halfway sincere story about getting fired from a bowling alley for "unsanctioned fireworks testing" and somehow landing where he is now. Angela admits that she feels comfortable around Jimmy, and he confesses he hasn't dated much lately as he discovered most women don't find guy with niece and drywall hands all that appealing. She smiles and says maybe she’s not most women. As they leave the restaurant, Jimmy hesitates - unsure whether to go for a kiss, a hug, or a dumb joke. Angela solves the dilemma by gently tugging him down by the shirt collar for a kiss that's short, slightly awkward, but genuinely sweet.
Jimmy stands outside the courthouse with a large manila envelope in his hands - the kind that makes things official. Darren claps him on the back, tells him he’s proud of how far he’s come, and reminds him that CPS rarely recommends full custody to the guy who once called them a bunch of nerd cops with clipboards.
At Jimmy's apartment later that evening, there are signs of change - albeit a little rough around the edges still: Sadie's school art projects taped to the walls, actual groceries in the fridge, and a half-fixed ceiling fan that's at least no longer threatening to fall. Nancy is in the kitchen making chicken and green bean casserole like she's feeding an army. She barks at Jimmy to grab the good plates. With pride, she comments that it's about time her baby pulled his head out of his ass. Jimmy kisses her cheek and tells her that's the nicest thing she's ever said to him. Angela arrives with a bottle of wine. Lenny shows up with a six-pack of beer and a pie he claims to have baked but still has the price sticker from the grocery store. They all settle in around the cramped dining table. Jimmy makes a quick toast. He thanks them for helping him not totally screw this up.
After dinner, the apartment has gone quiet. Dirty dishes still cover the counter, and the flicker of Cops glows faintly on the TV. Jimmy slouches on the couch, half-watching, half-dozing. Angela cozies up on the couch next to him and rests her head on his shoulder. She asks how he can watch garbage like Cops. Jimmy mutters that he enjoys watching the screw-ups - makes him feel like he's not doing that bad in life by comparison. Angela climbs into his lap and kisses him. She then asks if this is more entertaining than some guy getting arrested for huffing paint behind a 7-Eleven. Jimmy kisses her, then sneaks a glance back at the screen mid-makeout. Angela catches it, swats the back of his head playfully, and calls him hopeless. Jimmy then asks she happened to bring over any outfits from her "other job." Angela narrows her eyes, then - without a word - gets up and disappears into the hallway. Jimmy waits, thinking maybe he crossed a line. But then Angela reappears in the doorway wearing a sharp set of leather lingerie. Jimmy’s jaw drops. He stares at her like he’s seeing the holy grail and mutters that he must be dreaming. He is. In reality, Jimmy and Angela are asleep on the couch. The TV is still on - the Cops theme playing faintly in the background. Sadie pads in from her room, rubbing her eyes. She grabs a glass of water, then pauses when she sees Jimmy and Angela curled up on the couch. Sadie drapes a blanket over them, then quietly disappears back to bed.
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