Lesbian prop-master Casey (Cam Killion) is abandoned by her girlfriend after a fight at a run-down motel, at the height of COVID-19 lockdowns in California. What’s worse, her girlfriend has taken not only her car, but her dog as well. She teams up with unemployed actor Alan (Joohun Lee) on a road trip to an audition in Canada. Casey is bitterly cynical while Alan is blindingly optimistic, which makes for a hilarious odd-couple road movie. Featuring beautifully shot landscapes, Laramie Dennis’s laidback debut feature film draws on, and queers, the work of Sam Shepard, and will delight fans of offbeat indie comedies à la the ‘90s works of Hal Hartley and Alison Anders.
The film is inspired by the true-to-life story of the discovery of the long-lost “Opus 28” manuscript from Norwegian composer Johan Halvorsen, originally performed in 1909 by Canadian violinist Kathleen Parlow, to whom the piece was dedicated. Campbell portrays a student who seeks to complete her thesis on Parlow by organizing a public performance of “Opus 28” from Toronto to Oslo. The cast includes Dueñas, Melanie Scheiner, Eve Duranceau, Maxim Gaudette, Rosa-Johan Uddoh, and Eileen Davies.