A Beautiful Service

Feature Film | Original

When a charismatic mayoral candidate walks into her bar, a young New Orleans bartender discovers she has an extraordinary gift for political warfare, a questionable definition of morality, and a looser grip on reality than she'd like to admit.

Jo did not plan to come home. She did not plan to inherit a bar, a debt, or a mother living on the streets who keeps warning anyone who'll listen that a storm is coming. What she definitely did not plan was Charlotte Wilder. A mayoral candidate walks into her bar, sees something in Jo that Jo hasn't seen in herself in years, and offers her a seat at the table. The problem is that Jo is very good at this. The other problem is that being very good at this requires her to do things that get progressively harder to explain, justify, or undo. The third problem is her mother was right about the storm.

A Beautiful Service is a black comedy about inheritance — not of property, but of patterns — set against the music, politics, and flood-prone geography of New Orleans. It is about what happens when the most dangerous person in the room is also the one with the most to lose, and about the particular tragedy of being prophetic, gifted, and just unwell enough to burn it all down.

Full script available upon request.