When newlyweds Meris and Mitch move to Portland, Meris does her best to fit in with her new hubby's old high school clique. The harder she tries, the more painfully obvious it is that Meris just doesn't belong. But its not until the gang succeeds in rekindling an old flame between Mitch and his perfect, upbeat first love that Meris—tactfully put—loses it. Her life trashed, Meris settles for a job as a candy store clerk in town. There she finds a real friend in rocker Trudy, who introduces her to the virtues of thick black eyeliner and the grimy underworld of the Northwest punk scene. Self-discovery and 1960s Cambodian rock lie just around the bend.

Katie O'Grady charmingly inhabits the inner workings of one woman's quest to be herself even when she's on track to becoming someone else. At the forefront of low-budget, high-energy regional American indies, James Westby (The Auteur, TFF '08) pairs subversive cinematic language with a lively soundtrack and imaginative visual compositions to create a black comedy of embarrassments about sticking up for yourself no matter how messy.

James Westby and James Westby