A marriage, broken by death, is kept alive through the memories held by grape soda

Recently releasing his latest short Guest of Honor, Justin Robinson first caught the internet’s attention with Grape Soda. A film about a marriage broken by death, kept alive through the memories held by grape soda. While the film kicks off with a heart breaking discovery, it’s truly the unexpected heaviness which follows that creates such an emotional downfall.

The initial image that birthed this story was an image of a man sitting on the kitchen floor, looking out a back window, rubbing his wedding ring on his finger. I wanted to know why he was rubbing his wedding ring and 9 pages later, GRAPE SODA came to be.

Along with that, my older brother and best friend, Jordan, died of cancer in 2008 and one small connection I had with him was slurpees. Especially growing up in Florida, where 7-Eleven’s are practical beacons of hope for kids riding their bikes through the hot summer. A go-to slurpee flavor we went for was this unknown purple flavor from an unbranded gas station, which was our jam for sometime. Crazy enough, on August 19, 2008 — the last day of Jordan’s life, I shared a purple smoothie with him a few hours before he died, hence all the purple in this film.

Grape Soda thrives from its lead character’s subtle but painful progression. Mark Ashworth brilliantly aspired the script and Justin’s vision to ultimately let his emotions carry the story. A story that certainly will melt any heart it comes across.