From a screenplay by Shia LaBeouf, based on his own experiences, award-winning filmmaker Alma Har’el (‘Bombay Beach,’ ‘LoveTrue’) brings to life a young actor’s stormy childhood and early adult years as he struggles to reconcile with his father and deal with his mental health. Fictionalizing his ascent to stardom, and subsequent crash-landing into rehab and recovery, Noah Jupe (‘A Quiet Place’) and Lucas Hedges (‘Boy Erased,’ ‘Manchester by the Sea’) play Otis Lort, navigating different stages in a frenetic career.
LaBeouf takes on the therapeutic challenge of playing a version of his own father, an ex-rodeo clown and a felon. Dancer-singer FKA twigs makes her feature-film debut, playing neighbour and kindred spirit to the younger Otis in their garden-court motel home. Har’el’s feature narrative debut is a one-of-a-kind collaboration between filmmaker and subject, exploring art as medicine and imagination as hope through the life and times of a talented, traumatized performer who dares to go in search of himself.