Meet Jonah.
Socially awkward, emotionally constipated, and about as charismatic as a DMV line on a Tuesday. He lives in an hourly-rental motel that smells like expired dreams and bleach. He shares this luxury suite with his mom and her boyfriend. The motel is a museum for Hollywood's forgotten — washed-up porn stars, enthusiastic methheads, and people who think the government replaced their teeth with microphones.
Jonah’s father, Philly, hasn’t been in his life for two decades. Why? Well, he cheated on Jonah’s mom, sure—plus commitment isn’t exactly his thing unless we’re talking about staying in a five-block radius of Brooklyn since Clinton was president. He’s a local handyman, which is ironic since his biggest accomplishment was destroying his family. His sidekick, Sonny, is your classic neighborhood guy with a toolbelt and a smile that says “I know where the bodies are.” Bonus reveal: Sonny’s actually Jonah’s half-brother, the biproduct of his infidelity.
Then one day, Jonah gets a message—that Philly is dying of cancer. This sparks the world’s most dysfunctional road trip: Jonah and Sadie, the motel’s resident goth girl with a spiritual rain cloud hovering above her like a cartoon omen. They drive cross-country in a vintage Studebaker held together with duct tape and unspoken grief, only to arrive in Brooklyn moments after Philly get shot on his own doorstep.
This, somehow, is Jonah’s coming-of-age moment—the bullet-riddled, father-bleeding-on-the-linoleum floor kind. He can’t unsee it, can’t undo it, and certainly can’t go back to being a man-child marinating in motel mildew waiting for his big break as an actor.
So now, with a cesspool full of guilt swirling around him, Jonah’s finally forced to evolve—or at least mutate into a marginally better version of the loser he once was.
And that, is what we call growth.
