John’s just lost his child. His marriage is falling apart. His career is being taken over by younger, faster, smarter people.

So what is one to do?

He flees his life for the freedom and adventure of the ocean and a dying American Dream, but a vicious circle always seems to bring him right back to where he started.

Director’s Statement

This film, for me, is a meditation on the American Dream, and how our wants, needs and memories can interact with us daily, as if they were the people right in front of us, living and breathing.

What is the American Dream in 2020? Is it still the same notion of a wife, a couple kids, a house, a good job and a dog? Is the American Dream rising through the ranks of a Fortune 500 company and coming out on top? Is it being content with where you are and happy about what you’re putting into the world?
And what happens when this dream is pulled out from under you, or you get there and realize these aren’t the things that make you happy or feel fulfilled in life?

This film is about the dual lives our main character could have lived; had he gone down a different path and hadn’t lost a child and hadn’t ruined a marriage, or lost passion for his career, it’s possible these things would still haunt him because they are so tied up with our country’s idea of “success”.

The cyclical nature of this film, in that it starts and ends in the same exact spot, gets at how, as much as we try to run from the things that haunt our memories most, they’re always waiting right around the corner to send us back to the beginning of the maze.

I think it’s also interesting to see the American Dream discussed through the eyes of a Mexican man in Trump’s America.

Sometimes someone else takes the American Dream in their hands and changes your life because of it.

Sometimes someone around you stands up and sends you off to a different part of the maze where you’re forced to feel your way through the dark, trying to find that elusive and illusive Dream again.