Greetings again from the darkness. Three young men are smoking together in a local park - sharing a joint in a haze of smoke. No words are spoken. We don't know what this means, yet that's how the film from co-directors Jamil McGinnis and Pat Heywood begins.
Our key player is Shaq played by Shaq Bynes. It's his first screen role. In fact it's the first screen role for almost everyone in the cast, which combined with the intimacy of the camera, gives the film an organic feel at times - like it's not really a movie. Shaq talks about being "back home", and it takes us most of the run time to figure out why he left. What's obvious is that an event has pushed him into a depressed state, and he's trying to deal with it by diving back into normal. Normal for him means re-connecting with the friends from his New Jersey neighborhood, hanging out, and dancing at a party.
The filmmakers take a very artsy approach in contrasting what Shaq is actually experiencing to what's going on in his head ... the two are often disconnected. Soft jazz is used effectively on the soundtrack, as is the Langston Hughes poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers". One line in particular hits directly on what Shaq is living with: "My soul has grown deep like the rivers". This is a creative approach to both a short film (22 minutes) and looking at depression and grief.
