Discreet

In the provocative new feature from San Francisco-based filmmaker Travis Mathews (Interior. Leather Bar., 2013) a troubled drifter named Alex (Jonny Mars, A Teacher, 2013), travelling cross country in an old van, makes a pit stop in his hometown in rural Texas awash in right-wing talk radio. A quick visit with his estranged mother, who has recently gotten sober after several relapses, uncovers a startling revelation that forces Alex to confront demons of his past that he long thought dead and buried. As Alex struggles to reconcile with the unexpected news, he falls into a dangerous spiral of self-exploration that brings a collection of unusual unsuspecting people into his orbit, including a bored, local teenage boy; a YouTube spiritual guru (Atsuko Okatsuka, Littlerock, 2010); and a mysterious figure from his past. With Discreet, Matthews expertly takes the audience through a challenging and kaleidoscopic journey, including provocative and kinky online hook-ups, into the underbelly of small-town America to bear witness to its prevailing cycles of sexual and emotional need, its depravity and pain. Screens with Jay Rosenblatt’s Scared Very Scared (7 min), a meditation on Trump’s America. —Joe Bowman