However, there’s also a counterbalance to these dark strains. As much as the story turns a critical eye towards life in suburbia, it also offers hope and optimism that there is indeed a way to connect with the magic that exists around us all the time if only we have the eyes to see it.
On the surface, the story follows an alienated high school senior named Dean (Jamie Bell) who discovers the suicide of his only friend. He doesn’t tell any of the adults in the town and shows no outward signs of remorse. However, his friend was also the town’s illegal supplier of psychotherapeutic pills. Demand is high and the careful balance in the community has been thrown off. Dean is faced with the decision whether to get involved or not. At the same time, in the parallel adult world, the town’s Mayor is also on the verge of a major life change, searching for a way to connect with his own artistic soul, and trying to connect with the truly profound scattered beneath the suburban banality.
Standing alone against a world focused on their petty love lives and empty careers, our heroes find something to care about, somebody to connect with, and maybe even a way out of the inevitable descent into a numbed adulthood.
