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SYNOPSIS:
We see an empty room of a cheap motel somewhere in suburban Philadelphia, dead quiet. Jeremy Trevault, 20’s, lanky with a slight case of ‘mullet’ and wearing a tuxedo, bursts in possessed and shaking, with a paper bag. He dumps the bag out onto the bed: There’s a dime bag of heroin, which he’s never done, the accessories (syringe, lighter, spoon, etc.) a printout of how to shoot it, downloaded off the WEB and a revolver with one bullet in it, bought on the way over at a pawn shop. Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll Part II starts to play, as if it were in his head, driving him to sit on the bed, open the heroin bag and line up the tools. The song gets louder and is now at soundtrack level. ‘It’s just a thing, just a thing’; he whispers his accidental Buddhist mantra to himself as he clumsily follows the instructions on the sheet. Our view becomes aerial and circling, as if we were watching a hockey game on TV. For a moment, he looks around, thinking he’s on the ice and 16,000 fans are watching him try to shoot up. He flips on the TV, Oprah comes on. Our aerial view continues to slowly rotate around the room as he finally gets the needle in a vein, half nails it and for a moment we see him chastising himself for blowing it. He drops on the bed, the song warbles in and out. Somehow, he sits at the edge of the bed, finds the gun, lifts it towards the side of his head but on the way it slips and he shoots himself in the foot, grazing it. He falls to the ground and pulls the phone down to the floor by its cord, dialing with his numb fingers, moaning and passing out. The next day, Stephanie, a philosophy PhD student at Villanova and the jilted bride of Jeremy, is tossing his personal items on the lawn, through their living room window. Jeremy arrives, in crutches, dropped off by his brother. She yells at Jeremy, tells him whatever is going on he has six weeks to get it figured out. She can’t dump him because he tried to kill himself and they’ve been through too much already. His brother Marcus, with whom he gets along on a surface level, comes back, anticipating Jeremy would be without a home and Jeremy leaves with him. At Marcus’s house, over dinner, Marcus’s wife Linda berates Jeremy over his behavior. It’s clear they don’t get along at all. Jeremy and Marcus, an accountant with whom he gets along on a surface level, reminisce over a picture of them and their father (1). Jeremy can’t fall asleep. The next morning, we see him hobbling to the local rink he manages. His manager, Thomas, arrives to find out what happened and to tell him his big career shot with the Flyers was gone. Thomas has dedicated his life to Jeremy, so blindly devoted as almost a father figure that people think Thomas has lost his mind. He refuses to see the truth of Jeremy; a flawed piece of human machinery on the brink of several precipices at any one time, take your pick. Thomas is still convinced he has it in him. Jeremy fires him, more out of doing Thomas a favor than dissatisfaction. After Thomas leaves, Jeremy’s body starts to convulse as all the trauma of the last few days catches up to him. That night, he visits O’Leary’s Pub, owned by cancer stricken poet Charles O’Leary, a family friend and in love with Jeremy’s widowed mother. While sipping his water, he meets room guzzling showgirl Daisy Idaho, a struggling female singer/songwriter, right before her set. They hit it off as that same evening, Charles gives Jeremy a gift from his deceased father -- $50,000 -- to be given at the right time. Charles tells Jeremy the story of his father giving it to him. Jeremy escorts Daisy back to where she’s staying, offers to give her some money and run to New York. She declines. Jeremy gets back to his brother’s house and we see a clip from his past, when he throws up on the ice. Marcus arrives home and Jeremy tells him about the money. Marcus flips, wants some of it and Jeremy won’t give him any. Marcus and Jeremy get into an argument and Jeremy leaves to stay with his mother. The rest of the film follows the troubled hockey mega-talent; he and Daisy in New York combined with scenes from his past, including an alleged nervous breakdown and a brief painting career. Jeremy’s mentor and father figure, Thomas, insecure about his failings with ‘raising’ Jeremy, makes one last crazed pitch for him – with the US Olympic hockey team. When Jeremy hears about it, Daisy gives him the courage to accept and the next morning, she is gone. We see Jeremy practicing on the ice alone, a line of pucks in the open net two blue lines away, the Devil sitting in the stands, then playing goalie to his slap shots as he makes the tryout and reconciles with Stephanie. As a sports obsessed teenager who lived in a Philly suburb, I want to create a film that mixes my heritage with an honest, modern sports character. The atmosphere of the film is dirty, suburban Dylan and can be shot on location with a grit and nails soundtrack.