ABOUT THE PROJECT

LOGLINE
Based on a true story of a mother’s struggle to heal after the loss of her son to a heroin overdose.

SYNOPSIS
On a sunny morning, in the coastal town of Rowayton, Connecticut, a cell phone rings. A woman, Barbara, in her 50s, answers the phone. “Jack is dead.” Jack, 22 years of age, Barbara’s son, died of an overdose. Barbara, a recently divorced mother of four is left to pick up the pieces of her new reality. She is now a mother of three.Where does anyone go from here?

A few weeks pass, and Barbara drives her Ford F150 truck up a desolate driveway. She is on the prestigious “off the map” island of Martha’s Vineyard. She pulls up to her modest tucked-away, shingled, summer cottage, where she has spent many years and all too many family memories. She enters the cottage on a mission: to ignore the tragic loss of her son and hide from her new reality. Within the first five minutes of her arrival to the cottage she is met with visceral memories of Jack.

They begin to haunt her until, finally, after being triggered by enough memories, Barbara decides to allow them to guide her on a healing journey. Through her memories, we learn of Jack’s struggles from a young age to when he started using drugs, and, finally, the start of his opioid addiction. Throughout the film Barbara is haunted by her own sense of “sinking” into darkness, and by the end of the film she has found a way out and is determined to share it with the world.

DEAR JACK is based on a true story with source material, a book called “Dear Jack: A Love Letter,” written by Barbara Bates Conroy and Jackson Scott Conroy, which was released May 2018. Writer Cece King grew up with the Conroy family, so when Barbara approached her about adapting her book into a screenplay, Cece was eager to tell this story.

PROJECT TYPE Narrative Feature

DIRECTOR Annette Haywood-Carter
SCREENWRITER Cece King
PRODUCER Cece King, Elyse Russell & Devon Ogden

WEBSITE twistedvalleyfilms.com