Saturday morning in a quiet suburb. Elliot is a teenager in the middle of an intense workout. On a run, he passes by a neighbor’s yard sale, and finds another neighbor passed out facedown on his lawn. These images of uprootedness foretell Elliot’s journey, for his workout has a sinister goal: he is tiring himself out to attempt suicide. Once he’s exhausted, he jumps into his backyard pool with a weighted backpack strapped to his back and we cut to —
The neighbor facedown on his lawn. He’s waking up. This is Steven. Steven has been out all night gambling. And his wife knows it. She has her bags packed inside the house. She just doesn’t know where her husband is. He enters the house and they begin what could be their final confrontation as a couple.
Meanwhile, Wallace is packing up the last items in his house. His late wife weighs heavily on his mind. He is struggling to let go of the past, sensing he — as an old man — has little left to live for. He carries a box out to his yard sale. He is moving today. Going to live somewhere else. We’re not sure where, but he’s not looking forward to it. Some humorous banter with his movers undercuts a melancholic tone. He has a vision of his wife still with him, and bids her items farewell in the yard sale.
Riley, Elliot’s sister, brings a box left by her parents to Wallace’s yard sale. She returns home just in time to see her brother go into the pool. She rescues him. Now they must confront this dark secret, and figure out what to do next.
Like a polyphony, the story builds note by note, jumping between these characters like a chaotic aria. We also double back over their points of view, returning to moments we’ve already seen but from another perspective, building onto the meaning of what we initially saw. It’s Memento meets Magnolia, in miniature. The film’s ending juxtaposes relationships being salvaged and forsaken in a final crescendo which leaves their futures open, but not without promise.
