THE JACKET
Year: 2005
USA: Warner Independent Pictures
UK: Warner Bros
Cast: Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kelly Lynch, Brad Renfro, Daniel Craig, Laura Marano, Steven Mackintosh, Tara Summers, Mackenzie Phillips, Ian Porter, Caroline Marcelle, Jason Lewis, Jonah Lotan, Jake Broder, Fish
Director: John Maybury
Countries: USA / UK
USA: 102 mins
UK: 102 mins
USA Rated: R for violence, language and brief sexuality/nudity
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong violence and language
USA Release Date: 4 March 2005
UK Release Date: 13 May 2005
Synopsis
1991: Jack Starks, a U.S. Marine Sergeant serving in the Persian Gulf War, receives a near-fatal gunshot wound to the head. Although he recovers, the incident leaves him with shock-related amnesia. After his release, with nowhere to go, Starks, who has no relatives, returns to his native Vermont.
Nine months later, hitchhiking along a snowbound Vermont highway, Starks encounters a broken down pick-up truck. The driver, a drunken, disoriented mother named Jean, and her 8 year-old daughter, Jackie, are stranded at the roadside. With Jean too drunk to speak with him, Starks approaches Jackie and offers his help and gets the truck started.
Starks continues hitchhiking, and is picked up by a station wagon driven by a young man headed for the Canadian border. Shortly afterward, the car is pulled over by the police and Starks blacks out. When he awakens, he finds himself on trial for murder in a small town court.
Found not guilty by reason of insanity, Starks is committed to Alpine Grove, a state institution for the criminally insane. There a staff physician, Dr. Becker subjects Starks to a jarring experimental treatment involving mind-altering drugs and claustrophobic physical restraint. Once medicated, Starks is wrapped in jacket-like restraints and left alone for hours at a time in a corpse drawer located in the hospital's basement morgue.
And in the drawer, in the dark and under the influence, Starks initially experiences flickers of memory from the war and the shooting of the police officer. Under this regimen, he begins putting together bits of his past and tries to make sense of his circumstances.
The past gives way to the future when he is suddenly transported to a diner in Vermont where he meets Jackie, a waitress who takes pity on him and tries to help him find a place to sleep for the night. It is Christmas Eve, and all of the local homeless shelters are full, so Jackie allows Starks to sleep on her couch. In these hours, Starks begins to realize that the drawer he's been confined to is the secret to his recovery and that his future and well-being lie in the hands of the girl he's just met.
THE JACKET is a gothic thriller directed by John Maybury. With a screenplay by Massy Tadjedin from a story by Tom Bleecker and Marc Rocco, THE JACKET is produced by Peter Guber for Mandalay Pictures and George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh for Section Eight Productions. THE JACKET is supported by Scottish Screen and the Glasgow Film Office, and was shot in Scotland and Canada.