(re)Search my Trash

<body> <div align="left"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" width="800" cellpadding="0" height="100%"> <tr> <td width="100" rowspan="2" background="../stylepix/square.gif" valign="top">  </td> <td width="4" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="592" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" width="592"> <tr> <td width="100%">  </td> </tr> </table>   <p>Not long ago, botanist Mercer (Jeff Wincott) was on top of the science game - but then he learned about his chronic, probably terminal illness, and he decided to drop out of the field, and out of human society really, to live a life in a shed in the woods, with his days mostly consisting of collecting mushrooms and doing some research on them in his very makeshift laboratory, seeing if he can find a cure to cancer ... or at least what he's having. Eventually, he finds his most promising mushrooms harvested, but happens upon the boy, Elvis (Wolfgang Wincott) - named after Elvis Costello, not Presley -, who has taken them but is more than happy to trade for snacks. Despite his strictly hermit lifestyle, Mercer takes interest in the boy, offers him shelter, and soon learns that Elvis is a runaway since his schizophrenic father has set fire to their home and really has nowhere to go. Things aren't easy at first as the boy tries to steal from Mercer, but Mercer soon lets sympathy win the upper hand, and he tries to adopt Elvis the proper way. But his own healt worsens and it's soon a question whether he'll be able to take care of the boy if he can't even properly take care of himself ...<p> <p>Now this is a movie that was quite obviously made with a lot of heart, so it does neither try to sugar-coat its story, nor bluntly hammer home any kind of message - two of the main faults films of this ilk usually have. Instead it tries to tell its story in an honest way, gives both main characters their individual flaws, doesn't force its happy ending, and stays true to its characters rather than molding them to fit a narrative formula. And a direction that makes the best of use of its rather impressive outdoor locations without letting them smother the story and performances, and two very believable and relateable leads make this, despite its rather slow pace, a very watchable, even likeable piece of cinema. <p>  </td> <td width="4" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="100" rowspan="2" background="../stylepix/squareright.gif" valign="top">  </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="592" valign="top">  <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> currentyear = "2022"; </SCRIPT> <SCRIPT language="JavaScript" src="../scripts/endcredits.js"></SCRIPT> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> dosworsdonn(); </SCRIPT> </td> </tr> </table> </div> </body>