Plot

An introverted editor living a vertical life in his 2nd-floor apartment, locks himself out of his building and is forced to go horizontal and confront the world he's been avoiding in search of a way back inside.

After many acclaimed supporting roles, Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Eternals) takes on his first big screen lead role as Charles, an introverted video editor, trying to recover from a broken heart. Perceiving a betrayal of trust as a sign his girlfriend Isha (Sonequa Martin-Green, Star Trek: Discovery) is leaving him, Charles preemptively blows up his relationship and sequesters himself at home (before it was cool). The fates don't comply and Charles accidentally locks himself out of his apartment. Stumbling into a life-changing odyssey up, down, around and above his block, Charles meets a world of previously avoided neighbors played by Sunita Mani (G.L.O.W, Mr. Robot), Olivia Edward (Better Things), Asia Kate Dillon (Billions, John Wick 3), Maria Dizzia (Orange is the New Black) and Michael Cyril Creighton (The Post, Spot- light) among others. In a timely story about not taking the world outside for granted, Charles is forced to re-evaluate the choices he's made when he sees his life in parallel with the people around him. From the widow next door, to the curious swingers up- stairs, to the piano prodigy hiding out on the roof, Charles moves from one neck-snap- ping tableau to the next, disrupting and being disrupted in the process. With no shoes, no money, a phone running low on battery and the stars aligned to keep him physically separated from his comfort zone, Charles discovers in The Outside Story we've all got issues and it never helps to keep them on lockdown inside.