Indy Dang | Influence / 2019

i am what you think

by Douglas Messerli

 

Indy Dang (screenwriter and director) Influence / 2019 [29 minutes]

 

Cal (Kyle Brier), a 16-year-old student who’s being bullied at his private prep-school, particularly regarding his rumored relationship with a student named Evan (Donald Riddle), now has even further problems with the return home from college of his brother, Landon (Samuel Blustein), who has more gently bullied him for most of their last years together. 

    Landon has dropped out of school, we soon discover—even though his parents come late to the revelation—mostly because of his heavy use of drugs. Although his parents seem to accept the return of the prodigal son with some sense of equanimity, we recognize there is tension in the air, created also by the fact that Cal, with high grades and the possibility of becoming the valedictorian, is obviously their “favored” son. They call him “baby,” and when his Spanish grade goes down to a B+ they offer him the services of a tutor.

     When Cal finds himself being chased home each night by a cadre of three school bullies, he at least finds a new purpose for his elder brother, demanding that he pick him up at school at the end of the day. While Landon is resentful for his request, the fact that Cal has found him with his drug paraphernalia on his bed—although his brother claims he just smoking weed—gives him the upper hand. And the next time Landon is threatened with the bullies, Landon tosses raw eggs at the three boys, meaning they may have to explain the cleaning of their uniforms to their mothers at home.

     

Yet the brotherly teasing continues. Since Cal goes to all boy’s school, Landon wonders, as they sit talking in the car for brotherly privacy, what does he do for sex. Cal points out that they have a sister, all girl’s school, and even suggests a possible girlfriend, which Landon, seeing her picture, suggests looks like a boy. Seconds later, Landon has started up the car taking Cal on trip he doesn’t want to participate in, to see his local drug dealer, Jackson (Alexander Matos).   

     Landon, of course, in an attempt to lighten up his brother, would like Cal to try some, but the boy resists, even Jackson arguing he doesn’t have smoke if doesn’t want to. The two, Landon and Jackson play some rounds of a computer game before Landon becomes so stoned that he passes out.

    Jackson explains that his drug dealing is just a side-gig because he’s need of money, not something he intends to continue for the rest of his life. And strangely, he befriends Cal, talking to him more like an adult that a high school kid, and soon after taking out his guitar to play. Since Cal is studying piano, the two get on, even momentarily offering his hand for Cal to feel his callouses which, he explains, how you get used to playing the guitar.

       When it’s truly time to leave, Cal receiving a cellphone call his parents, it is Jackson who drives them home, suggesting they “do this again sometime,” hinting—at least in Cal’s young imagination—of a possible sensitive (read gay) friendship in development.

 .     In another meetup, Cal does drink a beer when offered by Jackson, the process along with the school incident mentioned above, bringing him and his brother closer together. And soon after the two join Jackson at the pinball parlor. At one moment, however, Landon determines he has to go outside to get some air, probably for a smoke, while Jackson suggests Cal and he ride a nearby carousel. If it sounds almost like a kind of sexual set-up, you’d be as naïve as Cal. Jackson explains that his dad is now in the hospital and the expenses for his family are mounting up. The short and the long of his tale is another St. Francis student is willing to pay a “ton of money” for the drugs Jackson has, and wonders if Cal might be the delivery boy.

       Wisely, Cal bows out, Jackson once more playing the nice boy, saying he doesn’t want to pressure Cal. But once round of the merry-go-round later he’s read to do the drop off in the school bathroom. And we suddenly realize that all of Jackson’s flirtations with the obviously gay kid have been for this moment. “Oh my god, I could kiss you right now,” replies Jackson hugging the grateful boy, rarely finding the opportunity for even the male touch.

       As one might expect, it ends disastrously, with Cal hanging around a toilet stall out of which walks one of his tormentors. The other boy finally shoves him up against a wall and the bags of presumably coke fall out of his coat pocket, a faculty member intruding, and Cal being accused of being a drug dealer in the school where he has been such a model student.

       When his parents attack him for his suddenly bizarre behavior, Cal has no choice but to admit that it was Landon’s friend, the father immediately entering Landon’s room for an explanation. Landon, some rightfully denies he’s involved, but Cal insists that it was he who got him wrapped up in the whole thing. “You think just because you gave him that stupid uniform, you think he’s some kind of angel child. I don’t what the fuck’s going on, but is because of your mistakes Cal.

       In anger, Cal pulls out Landon’s drug box from under the bed, his father withdrawing paraphernalia that hints at the use of something far beyond weed. Suddenly realizing what their son had been doing in college and where some of their money went, the father picks up the box, goes to the front door, as behind Landon pleads for them to leave it, and tosses into the yard, soon after tossing his coat after him as he runs to check on whether they have broken anything. The door is locked. Their elder son is no longer permitted in the house. We also recognize that if this couple is so very unforgiving of their son’s drug abuse, not even interested in attempting to find him some help, how they might react if Cal were to tell them about his sexuality. Moral rectitude and social status are the heart of their upper middleclass aspirations.

     Cal breaks down in tears as well, and later that night escapes the house, going to Jackson’s place to see if Landon might be there. Jackson, who asks about the money, obviously doesn’t know, as Cal puts it, he “got caught.” Furious, Jackson refuses him to help find his brother and calls him “You fucking faggot,” Cal responding my calling him a junkie. A fight proceeds, with Jackson beating Cal, at that moment Landon driving up, pulling Jackson off his brother and beating him, until finally Cal pulls Landon away.

     The next words are Cal’s as the car pulls up in front of their parent’s house. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” The lines are never explained, and we can wonder what they entail. Is the little brother sorry for not knowing the depth of his own brother’s drug addiction? Was Jackson his primarily source all through college? Is he sorry for not knowing how their parents would behave in such a situation. Or is he perceiving something that is basically kept from the viewer, that the relationship between Landon and Jackson was something other than it seemed? That in protecting his little brother, he has had give up his drugs but also a deep friendship or even love.

      Cal, instead of pursing that comment, tells of his own lack of someone to talk too, admitting that everyone in school hates him just because someone found something and told everyone, something, he admits, that neither Landon nor his parents know. 

       Landon holds him, as Cal breaks down, the two of them seeming to have lost everything but one another. Finally, Cal speaks: “Come home. You can get help, and they’ll forgive you.” But Landon insists that he just can’t go back there right now—realizing as he must the severe limits of his parent’s love. 

      Cal suggests, we don’t have to go back there. Right now, we can do or go wherever we want.”

Landon lights up a joint, “Okay.” He hands the joint to his brother, who takes a quick whiff, as they drive off to Chopin’s Nocturne, Opus 9, No. 2, as if it were a gay brother love fantasy. We know, however, that this brother’s “influence” will continue to be a bad one for the younger romantic. Who will they live without money, clothes, a home? What happens when the drugs run out, there is no food to eat? Maybe they will change their minds by the morning or the next day. Will their parents be flexible enough to now face two major disappointments in their plans for heirs, symbols in their minds of their failures as parents? Perhaps in their endless demands for perfection, the parents may have lost their own children forever. Will the boys, like so many others, be forced to work the streets, to run drugs or even prostitute themselves. The moving film doesn’t attempt to answer any of these questions, and even the meaning of its title is abstract. If there are people to blame, Jackson is of the course the obvious party; but it may be that the parents are the true “influence” which destroyed their own children’s lives. If nothing else, it’s clear that neither son was given the proper love and acceptance they needed.

      Director Indy Dang made this film for his final project at The Rhode Island School of Design, later went on to direct the short Growing Pains, and to become the Production Designer for the TV mini-series No Friends Club.

      Influence, I’d argue, was one of the best short films in a year in which a substantial number of such works stood out, including Vasilis Ketatos’s The Distance Between Us and the Sky, Aiman Hassani’s Khata, Olivier Lallart’s Fag, Jessie Levandov’s Baby, Sharlin Lucia’s In a Moment, Nosz Anjembe’s Freed, Marine Levéel’s Magnetic Harvest, Saleem Haddad’s Marco, Gabriel Páucar Vásquez’ Hotel Paraiso, Haukur Björgvinsson Wilma, and Arthur Gay’s Lipstick.

 

Los Angeles, August 16, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (August 2023).