Esquisse of Affliction

Zicheng Li

DANNY, a 23-year-old college graduate, returns to his childhood home in Monterey, California, following the sudden passing of his Mother, LORRAINE. After the funeral, Danny, his sister KATY, returned from LA, and their Dad, WAYNE talk about their plans for the immediate future. They run into GAIL, Lorraine’s former colleague, who has found Lorraine’s body at home. She tells Danny and Katy that Lorraine has some stuff left in her office, advising them to pick it up sometime.
On their way back, Wayne asks if Danny will come back to Chicago with him, but Danny refuses. Wayne claims that Danny’s life will be wasted with a useless degree in philosophy and no clear goals in life to pursue. It provokes both Danny and Katy when Wayne says that Katy will have a more meaningful life after graduating from medical school, unlike their late mother, who wasted her life on art, not contributing to the world. An irritated Danny asks Katy to pull over and get out of the car.
Not knowing where to go, a starving Danny finds a diner. Just as he’s about to order, the waiter, NED, recognizes him. It turns out that they were best friends in middle school, but have lost contact with each other since Danny moved to Chicago. After the diner closes, they walk home together as they did 11 years ago. Under the moonlight, they talk about why Danny has moved to Chicago and why he has come back. Ned offers his condolences and tells Danny that he will be there to support him.
Back at home, Danny goes to look for his bike in the garage, which is also Lorraine’s makeshift studio. As Danny moves his old bike out, he discovers a portrait with the face area carved out.
The next day, Danny and Katy arrive at the community college where Lorraine used to teach as an art teacher to collect Lorraine’s stuff. In Lorraine’s office, Gail reveals to them that Lorraine was involved in an investigation regarding her inappropriate relationship with a student. Danny and Katy don’t believe their Mom would do so, and Danny starts looking through Lorraine’s stuff, determined to find anything Lorraine has kept about the said student and the truth about their relationship. Katy tries to convince him to give up since Lorraine has already passed, and there is no point in doing so, but Danny persists.
Katy has to go back to LA for school. Danny spends most of his time in the garage, ransacking the boxes. Just as Danny is frustrated for not knowing the correct password for Lorraine’s laptop, Ned asks if he wants to hang out.
Danny invites Ned over to his home, and Ned comes prepared for barbecue. They eat, they laugh - it’s like nothing has changed. Danny hasn’t been this happy for a long time. Sharing the memories of them going to the aquarium to watch jellyfish, Danny recalls that Ned told him he was a jellyfish alien, which Ned now finds embarrassing. Getting high on edibles, they start seeing jellyfish floating in the room. The next morning, Ned persuades Danny to work at the diner with him.
Danny starts working at the diner with Ned, where he meets the friendly manager, JEN, and a coworker, AMY. Danny learns that Amy is also a DJ, and Ned proposes to bring Danny to the club where Amy performs. The friendship between the three of them starts deepening over a conversation about art. Meanwhile, Danny continues his seemingly fruitless search through Lorraine’s stuff and tries to figure out the password to her laptop.
On a day when Ned is not working, Amy finds Danny bored. Danny reveals to Amy that his life in Chicago wasn’t happy. Their conversation is interrupted by a pair of customers that Danny goes to serve - SIMON and CHLOE.
Danny and Ned jog around town as an exercise. At the end of the run, they rest in the meadow next to the mountain and enjoy the weather. Danny says that he wishes the world could end so that he doesn’t have to be burdened by the frustration that being alive gives him anymore. Their conversation goes from the reason to be alive to Ned recalling that Lorraine once gave him a big tip at the diner. He also remembers that Lorraine came with a student, which triggers Danny. Danny shows Ned what he’s been working on in the garage and tells Ned he’s been trying to find information about that student. Ned suggests that Danny look elsewhere. In Lorraine’s bedroom, they find a pencil sketch of Lorraine in class, seemingly made by that student.
The next day at the diner, Amy overhears Danny and Ned talking about hacking into Lorraine’s laptop. She introduces them to her computer-savvy grandma, JANICE. Janice agrees to help Danny crack Lorraine’s password, but he says they will have to wait until after Halloween because she’s working diligently on making her own sophisticated costume.
On Halloween night, Ned dresses up as a jellyfish, while Danny can only find a vampire cape that he used to wear in middle school, which is too small for him now. Ned suggests that Danny put on smoky eye makeup so his white shirt and dress pants are not so boring. Using Lorraine’s charcoals, he helps Danny with the makeup, sharing a moment that feels a bit too intimate for them.
At the party, they are asked to write down their favorite superpowers for a prize drawing. Danny scolds Ned for wanting to fly, while he wishes he could make drawings come to life.
Danny retrieves the laptop from Janice after she has successfully cracked the password. Looking through Lorraine’s files and emails, he realizes that he has just gotten into another rabbit hole. While his investigation continues, Danny receives an overdraft notice letter from Lorraine’s bank. He calls Katy to discuss options, and Katy warns him that there won’t be enough money to pay Lorraine’s home loan. Not wanting to sell the house, Danny sells Lorraine’s car for some money that provides temporary relief. Making no progress on the investigation and getting himself in a financial crisis, Danny lashes on Lorraine’s stuff and accidentally discovers some life drawings of a naked man - someone he has seen before at the diner.
That night, Danny dreams of talking with Lorraine. Danny asks Lorraine if her relationship with the student is true and why she committed suicide. Lorraine tells him that the truth doesn’t matter, but the feelings do. She encourages Danny to stop being obsessed with her death and the past, but to embrace the future and openly experience his own life.
The next day at the diner, Jen throws Ned a surprise birthday party, which makes Danny realize that he has forgotten about Ned’s birthday. At night, when Danny and Amy are closing the diner, Amy tells Danny the story about her grandma. She says her grandma once suspected that her grandpa was having an affair, so she built the password decoding program to hack into his computer. However, she soon realized that her behavior had eroded the trust between them, rendering the truth about the affair meaningless.
After a bizarre encounter with a customer, PAUL, inquiring about Ned’s whereabouts, Danny learns from Jen that Ned will not come to work until after Thanksgiving. He calls Ned to see if there’s anything he can help with, and Ned reassures him that there’s nothing to worry about.
Katy comes home for Thanksgiving. Preparing dinner, she suggests that Danny sell the house and move back to Chicago because they won’t be able to pay off the loan. Danny is hesitant and refuses to think about it. Katy pushes Danny and lays out what reality looks like. They get into a heated argument. Danny storms out and comes to the diner, where he finds Jen spending Thanksgiving alone. He learns from Jen that she has no family other than the diner. Jen cooks some food and shares it with Danny. During the conversation, Jen reveals that she has always dreamed of traveling the world. She then asks Danny what his dream is, and Danny realizes that he has never thought of it.
Riding his bike under the influence of alcohol, Danny crashes into the pavement. Ned happens to come by on his bike. They lie on the pavement together, reflecting on their friendship. Ned encourages Danny to sell the house and move on, and Danny admits that he would never be as happy as he is now if not around Ned. Danny asks Ned if he would like to go to Chicago with him, and Ned tells Danny that his Dad is going through blood cancer treatment, which makes taking care of his Dad a mandatory part of his life. Ned also reveals to Danny that, in order to make enough money for the medical procedures, he has been working discreetly as an escort. Danny is stunned knowing what Ned is going through now.
Looking at the damaged portrait in the garage, Danny draws an association between what Ned’s doing and the nature of Lorraine’s relationship with that student. Coming to the conclusion that none of what he’s doing matters, and everything he thinks is important is indeed meaningless, Danny finally breaks down and sets the life drawings and the damaged portrait on fire. That night, he has a dream where he is buried under a ton of jellyfish while Ned and Simon are both trying to strangle him to death.
Amy invites Danny over to her grandma’s place. Danny and Janice work together on a flower arrangement, which Janice gives to Danny as a gift. She also teaches Danny how to distinguish between two similarly looking flowers to not mix up their cultural meanings. Amy tells Danny that Jen is preparing to carry out her plan to travel the world, and that she has written a song to debut at Jen’s party. The song is about how jellyfish loses its bones according to a Japanese folklore that she has come across online.
Back at home, Danny decides to clean up the garage. He organizes everything, wrapping up his investigation. During the process, he discovers a painting Lorraine did of him and Ned when they were playing together at the meadow. Danny gives Ned a call to apologize. He tells Ned that he has decided to move back to Chicago, and proposes that they should visit the aquarium again.
On the day of Jen’s party, Danny arrives at the diner earlier than Ned. Just as Danny hops to help with the decorations while waiting for Ned, Simon shows up at the diner again with Chloe. Learning that the diner will be closed for a private event, Simon and Chloe decide to leave. Danny, recognizing Simon as the guy in Lorraine’s drawings and finally having the chance to meet him, runs out to the parking lot to confront Simon about his relationship with Lorraine.
Simon admits that it was he who wanted to break up with Lorraine after they were reported to the school. As Danny questions Simon about how the relationship started, a commotion in the diner distracts him. He lets Simon go and returns to the diner, where he sees that Ned is lying on the ground with a knife stabbed into his throat. Paul, restrained on the ground by some guests, is yelling and accusing Ned of ghosting him after taking his money. Danny holds Ned’s face, and they have one last look at each other before Ned dies.
A few weeks later. Danny gets himself a tattoo on his forearm. He meets with Amy to work on a fundraiser campaign to raise money for Ned’s Dad. Danny asks Amy about the song, and Amy says she will send it to him later. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Wayne, who is here to help Danny with packing up and selling the house.
Danny finds Wayne looking sentimental at Lorraine’s painting of the beach. Wayne tells Danny that it is the beach where Lorraine used to go when pregnant with Danny, because Lorraine believed that the sound of the ocean would have positive effects on the personality of the baby.
Danny jogs toward the beach. Standing in the water and bathing in moonlight, Danny imagines the time Lorraine has spent here. Listening to Amy’s song that he has just received, Danny stares at his jellyfish tattoo. At the same moment, a giant jellyfish flies above him across the sky.