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Two boys encounter a man trapped inside a chicken coup deep in the woods outside of town. Since the event, the one who believed they should have helped him assumes the role of liberator throughout the rest of his interactions, while the other, who was wary of the man, becomes a victim throughout his personal life. Their trust versus distrust of humanity destroys their friendship, and leads to a climactic revisit of the crime scene.
SYNOPSIS:
The story is set at a small private fictional college in New England. The college is typified by the pretentious and (It starts with a) condescending dean, who explains the hypothetical safety net of college in a disciplinary meeting with the two main characters, Sam “Sarge” Sargent and Tom Schröder. The two were caught fighting another group of boys, in which Tom instigated and Sarge came to his aid. Tom is defensive, joking with the Dean, “They started fighting me. Why me?” The Dean asks Tom why he hit Sarge near the end of the fight. Tom tells him he mistakenly took Sarge for one of his assailants. The Dean asks them if they know who set a couch on fire on the quad the night before. The two go to a party where a group of college boys, led by Michael explains that he cannot be held responsible for his treatment of women especially when he’s drunk. He expresses his dislike for Sarge, who according to Michael “cock blocks” him every time he’s about to get with a girl. Meanwhile, a group of mostly girls talk to each other about how to get guys to notice them. Other girls disagree with the tactics, saying it devalues them. Killian, a character we meet by name later and Tom’s ex-girlfriend, is the most adamant. Tom and Sarge overhear Michael’s beef with Sarge, but Sarge acts like he did not hear it. Nonetheless, Sarge proposes they leave and go to a weekly bonfire on the outskirts of a local forest. Tom asks Sarge if he’s up for trespassing (as they have before) onto the large plot of land just beyond the bonfire. The two meet hang out and drink whiskey with their friends at the bonfire. Tom talks to an acquaintance named Maria. She typifies the counter-cultural crowd gathered there, in contrast to the clean and rich dressed people at the party house. Sarge, very drunk, proposes to Tom to go trespassing now. They hop the fence and walk through the woods on a lightly formed path, during which Sarge asks if he really didn’t recognize him. Tom says “Of course not.” They reach a clearing that they’ve never reached before. At the far end of the field, there is a small shack and a chicken coop. Hesitantly, they go to examine the shack, but see a man on all fours in the chicken coop. He asks them, “please let me out.” They are both conflicted. Sarge goes to let him out, but Tom convinces him not to, despite the man’s screaming imploring. They run back to the road to get cell coverage and call 911. A police squad car arrives and goes up the path. Noting they are drunk, he tells them to leave before he has to book them for underage drinking. ACT BREAK. The next day, Tom and Sarge go on a morning run like they always do. Later, the friends at the bonfire ask Tom and Sarge what happened, and why the police came. Sarge lies and tells them that he let the man out but he urged them to call the police. Tom, subtly irritated, goes along with the story. Tom and Sarge hang out with Maria and Malik, their friend who deals drugs. He, Tom and Sarge get high, though Sarge is less willing, and play the hypothetical game of “would you rather?” Maria complains about the either/or nature of the game. Sarge doesn’t like, but can’t explain his dislike for its hypothetical nature. In the middle of the resumed game, Malik laughs about forgetting the origin of the conversation and how they got to where they were. Sarge brings Maria water when she complains she has dry mouth. She says she’s fine. Tom and Sarge run in the morning again. Tom coughs after they finish, and Sarge offers friendly advice about smoking too much. He helps him up from the pavement. Later in the day, both Tom and Sarge get a call from a police investigator looking into the incident. They come down to the police station together. Tom tells Sarge, “This time, we don’t lie about what we did.” Sarge begins expressing his contention for what they did do, but stops himself. The investigator interviews them separately. They give two very different descriptions of how the man looked, sounded, and acted. They both describe him to a sketch artist. The difference in the drawings is dramatic. Afterwards, they talk about what it means that the event is being investigated--whether or not they’re suspects. Sarge expresses regret for not helping, thinking the man could be dead. Tom suggests the opposite, that the man is missing because he let himself out--he was never trapped at all. ACT BREAK. Sarge sits through a philosophy class where the professor explains the validity of a thought experiment. After class, Sarge wanders the city, then goes to a homeless shelter and volunteers. Tom is approached by a journalist/creative writing student who heard about what happened and wants to write a story about it. Tom doesn’t think its such a good idea--the writer says he’ll do it without interviewing it, and use his imagination to fill in the details. Tom looks despondently across a lake. Maria and Malik are hanging out at the Victorian style house Malik rents in the city. Malik’s buyers come to buy hard drugs such as ketamine, cocaine, and molly. Maria remarks about the humorous irony of all the druggies buying drugs in such a high class appearing house. Malik laughs too, before ranting on the difficulty of finding the original producer of a piece of music in “the rap game.” The investigator examines the evidence left at the chicken coop. He locks himself up in the shack and sees if he can get out. He stretches his hand out to the chicken coop as if he’s caressing it. He crouches and looks through the wire of the chicken coop. He takes a box of evidence back to his hotel room. He takes his clothes off and looks at himself in his webcam. Later, he welcomes a prostitute he called into his room. He caresses her like he did the evidence. He asks her to do something she’s never done before, but by that he means gelling up electron nodes to scan her brain while they have sex. During it, she is noticeably uncomfortable. Afterwards, the prostitute dresses and leaves as the investigator stands on the balcony and looks down onto the city. ACT BREAK. Tom runs into Sarge and the writer in the library. Sarge is happily helping the writer with her piece, answering all of her questions. Tom asks him why he’s doing it--asks if he’s doing it to get back at him for not letting him let the man out. Sarge says he was just trying to help, that it might even help he and Tom to sort out what happened that night. They go to another house party. Tom is sitting in solitude on the couch, while Sarge tries to keep him company. Tom says, “You know I don’t need you to baby sit me? Like, go have fun.” Sarge hesitates like he wants to reconcile somehow, but instead leaves. Michael is talking to Killian about what he’d like to do to her. She says he could be fired for sexual harassment for saying that. He says, “Good thing we’re in college.” Sarge brings Killian a glass of water and interrupts Michael and Killian’s conversation. Killian asks about Sarge’s ex-girlfriend, if she’s still alive or if she was suffocated by him. He says, “I’m not violent.” She responds, “Not that kind of suffocating.” She then points out a pattern in Sarge’s previous relationships over the last two years: he breaks up with girls after they become healthy individuals. She asks him if that’s the set up between him and Tom too. She tells Sarge that she and Tom had a lot in common. Michael interrupts and questions Sarge’s motives in cornering drunk girls, even if he’s not going to try to have sex with them. This leads to a brief physical altercation between the two. Michael tells Sarge he knows about his past of violence, how he got expelled from his previous college. Meanwhile, Tom is outside and talks to a group of smokers about the hypocrisy of all the men wearing designer clothes walking around with dirty assholes. He’s a proponent of bidets. He picks up smoking, and makes everyone laugh with self-deprecating humor. He asks, “Why me? Why’d have to happen to me?” when someone brings up the event. Maria asks him to stop. At the end of the party, Killian tells Sarge he can’t fix her defiantly. Sarge caresses her face. Killian wakes up in Sarge’s bed; he’s sleeping on the floor. She thanks him for taking care of her after the party. She asks if they kissed, and Sarge explains that she tried but he refused. She asks if its okay now that she’s sober. They kiss and have sex. She holds onto him for dear life. Maria and Tom are still awake from the night before and walk the route Tom and Sarge usually run. They’re still smoking cigarettes. The investigator is in a van, listening in on their conversation and taking notes. Tom is speaking philosophically, about how he’s a victim of the universe, subject to the fallout since the big bang. Maria tells him he’s being too “either/or minded.” Tom says he knows who he is--its been determined by his environment. Killian and Sarge have a conversation about Tom, since Sarge seems wary that she still loves him. She tells him, “All he (Tom) could do was take punches.” Tom and Sarge go for their daily run the next morning. Sarge keeps pushing Tom, despite the fact that he’s heaving from all the smoking. “It’s better to exorcise your lungs. I’m--” Tom cuts him off, “Don’t even fucking say it.” “Say what?” “Never mind.” Tom asks him if that’s why he’s “all over” Killian now. A van pulls off in the distance. Tom runs into the writer, and sarcastically asks her how the book is coming along. “Great,” she says and tells him that he dies on the 55 page. “So soon?” he mumbles. He asks her to send it to him. Tom reads it at Malik’s house where he, Maria and Malik are smoking weed. He jokes that its somehow cathartic read yourself being “written off.” Maria tells him to stop self pitying himself, “its like masturbation.” Malik asks why they’re bashing on masturbation, and goes on to explain how good porn is since “there are no consequences once you’re off, you’re done.” Malik tells them about his rich friend who would hit golf balls from his mansion into the poor streets--when they tried to arrest him the people couldn’t identify him. “All they knew was golf balls were raining on them.” Tom complains about how Sarge is “probably fucking Killian as we speak.” Maria asks why he cares. Malik tells them he wants to get so high, he literally has no conception of the future. “No future, no consequences. Pure, you know?” The investigator asks Tom and Sarge to come into the police station. “Whatever we can do to help,” Sarge tells him. The investigator asks them why they can’t get their story straight, and why they are lying. He shows them the conflicting drawings. He threatens that he’ll arrest them. Tom is intimidated, but Sarge agrees just because he wants to help clear everything up. He gives them both a brain scan. Afterwards, they are both dejected in the room waiting for the investigator to bring the results back. “I don’t remember how we got here,” Tom complains. Sarge asks him if he’s high, which irritates Tom, thinking he’s being judgmental. The investigator hesitates before entering the room, appearing to be conflicted. He lets them go without much explanation. ACT BREAK. Tom meets up with Maria and chain smokes an entire pack as they drive around in her car. She jokes that he’s a masochist. He calls all the chapel steeples phallic shapes and calls salvation a sham because it is just “dressed up self-preservation. Who wouldn’t want to live forever?” Maria asks him why he looks guilty, half-seriously. He appears convicted. Sarge meets up with Killian, and he tells her about his concern for Tom. She expresses her gratitude for him being with her. The man inside the chicken coop appears at Malik’s house. He pays for drugs. Malik, very high, is confused as he gathers the drugs for the man. During their conversation, the man talks about trying to escape his personality, and ultimately his own body. He quotes William Blake, “If only the doors of perception could be cleaned, we’d appear how we really are; infinite.” Malik asks him if that was a line from Tupac. Malik asks, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” He explains he used to be an actor in kids television show. While Malik is ordering other drugs the man undresses and solicits sex as compensation for the drugs. Scared, Malik grabs a gun and tells the man to leave. The man runs naked through the rich neighborhood. Maria and Tom arrive, and he explains to them what just happened. Not seeing the man, Tom has no idea that it was the man. Instead, they smoke weed. Sarge comes in, and Tom exclaims, “Here’s God’s gift to humanity.” Sarge explains that he’s concerned for Tom’s wellbeing. Malik plays a song on his laptop through his speakers. Surrealistically, Sarge sings along. He stops mouthing and the music continues. Tom looks over at the laptop and its closed, but the music is still playing. He starts crying. Maria takes him by the hand into a bed room where they have sex--each person takes control and gives control freely. Tom wakes up to find Maria passed out next to him. He puts his clothes on and sees Malik passed out on the floor. He walks to a church and goes to the confession booth. He looks into the confession booth mesh (which visually parallels the chicken coop wire.) He tells the priest that his intentions walking over here was to ask to confess and confess all. He’d been recently convinced of salvation, he said. However, he instead explains his contention with Christianity. He calls God an experimenter--worse than innocence or experience. He said he believes in depravity--but there’s no room for the devil, when mankind is darker than anything possible. ACT BREAK. The next day, Tom leaves before the usual time and runs alone. Sarge finds him passed out on the side of the road. He carries him to his room. Tom wakes up there and tells him that his help is degrading. Tom tells Sarge that he punched him on purpose during the fight spoken about at the beginning of the movie. He tells Sarge they would have died if they had let the man out. Sarge grabs him by the wrists and pulls him up. Sarge tells him he’s been thinking about that night, and wanting to see whether or not he can open it from the inside. He tells Tom to come with him. They go back up to the chicken coop. Sarge makes Tom get in, and tells him to try to get out. He can’t through the handle, but instead squeeze through under the wire, cutting his shirt and his skin. The investigator caresses the faces of Tom and Sarge on the screen in front of him watching footage he took of them earlier. He describes the project to the camera as an “experiment on the human condition.” He ends with: “Sometimes it was hard to watch. But I did it for the betterment of humanity.” A close up on the conditions of Tom and Sarge; Sarge in a fury, and Tom laying on the ground and bleeding.