USA,
2003, 92 min
Shown in 2003
CREDITS
OTHER
COMMENTS
Clark Brigham, Scott Cooper, Gabrielle Anwar, Richard Taylor in person.A portrait of the artist as a young man, Clark Brigham’s just-completed feature debut provides much visual pleasure—a painterly color palette, art adorning walls, as well as San Francisco’s glorious architecture and light. Seventeen years ago, teenaged Jake was exploring painting, perspective and the creative stimulation afforded by alcohol consumed with an antisocial, overly sensitive, bohemian mentor. He showed more talent for portraiture than inventorying the liquor cases in his father’s convenience store. A sudden tragedy turned Jake against his mother and father and he fled from his life, driving away across the Golden Gate Bridge. Now, the seventeen-years-older Jake returns, takes a room in the Mission Hotel, and starts nocturnal observations of his parents at home from the bushes in their yard. He sputters towards creating a life—renting a studio in a loft building, bartending at a trendy art bar, meeting people like the intriguing single mom and live-in owner of the building, women at the bar, old high school friends. And finally coming to a reconciliation of his past and his present, if not his future. This is a moving story about integrating a self-created artistic persona with the person you really are, and marks the arrival of a new Bay Area talent.