In Minangkabau, West Sumatera, Yuda a skilled practitioner of Silat Harimau is in the final preparations to begin his “Merantau” a century’s old rites-of-passage to be carried out by the community’s young men that will see him leave the comforts of his idyllic farming village and make a name for himself in the bustling city of Jakarta.
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Katie Arneson is faking cancer. A university dance major, Katie’s falsified diagnosis and counterfeit fundraising have transformed her into a campus celebrity surrounded by the supportive community she’s always dreamed of: a close-knit group of friends, security in her academic pursuits, and a caring relationship with her girlfriend. Dependent upon a bursary for sick students to maintain her ruse, Katie learns the funding is in jeopardy unless she can provide copies of her medical records within the week.
Blue collar childhood buddies Frank, Swaino and Packie – deeply bonded over Frank’s daughter Crystal, who they helped raise – meet off-hours one night in Frank’s out-of-the-way repair shop under cloudy circumstances that only Frank seems to have a handle on. Enter Chad, a rich, college jock, whose arrival ignites a long-simmering resentment that sets this dark, twisty drama on its breathless course.
A young American couple travel to the arctic mountains of Norway. After pulling over during a snowstorm, they wake up trapped in their SUV, buried underneath layers of snow and ice.
Bill McKay is a candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. He has no hope of winning, so he is willing to tweak the establishment.
A grad student breaks up with her boyfriend to focus on her thesis, not realizing something has infected him and that he’s going to wreak havoc on her life.
A young woman leaves the city to return to her hometown in the countryside. Seeking to escape the hustle and bustle of the city, she becomes self-sufficient in a bid to reconnect with nature.
Eric and Sam have been in a committed relationship for four years. Eric’s a former hockey player turned sportscaster and Sam’s a sport’s lawyer. But when Sam’s adventure seeking brother Billy, takes a job in South America, his ex-girlfriend, Julie, is discovered dead from a drug overdose leaving her son Scot (not Billy’s son) to Billy.
“Laura Smiles” is an alarmingly effective portrait of a woman’s mental breakdown. We are introduced to “Laura” at her happiest time, in a warm, loving relationship with her fiancé (a very appealing Kip Pardue) in the city, literally the love of her life. In flashbacks, we then see the sweet development of this relationship out of order as these moments become brightly lit and colored memories that desperately intrude on her later in life, as she becomes consumed with guilt and remorse over his fate. These feelings start to overwhelm her current life as a wife and mother. As something inconsequential in what she calls her “suburban drudgery” triggers the past — in the supermarket, cooking, cleaning, at a school play– she acts out increasingly aberrantly to counteract the feelings they generate, especially when she can no longer distinguish past from present from dreams, recalling Blanche Du Bois.
