VIRGIL BLISS
Year: 2001
UK: P-Kino Films
Cast: Clint Jordan, Kirsten Russell, Anthony Gorman, Greg Amici, Rich Bierman, Whitney Hamilton, Marc Romeo, Tom Brangle, Anthony Hayden, Denny Bess, Alejandra Leon, Patrick Sullivan, John Hagemann, Patrick Walsh, Mike Bubb, Ted Hamm, Alan Reeder, Matthew Auriemma, Jason Jones
Director: Joe Maggio
Country: USA
UK: 93 mins
UK Certificate: 15 contains frequent strong language, some sex, violence and drugs references
UK Release Date: 14 March 2003
Synopsis
Virgil Bliss (Clint Jordan) is a man obsessed with living a normal life, finding a good job, marrying a decent woman, and building a family of his own. The only problem, however, is that Virgil is a recently paroled career thief with a hair-trigger temper and the social skills of a child.
At the halfway house where he gets his first taste of freedom in nearly a decade, Virgil meets Manny Alvarez (Anthony Gorman), a fiery miscreant who takes the emotionally naive Virgil under his wing and initiates him in the ways of the world. It's Manny who introduces Virgil to Ruby (Kirsten Russell), an opportunistic junkie with whom Virgil falls instantly in love.
After a bumpy start, Virgil and Ruby begin to trust one another. Ruby shares with Virgil her plans to win back custody of her four-year-old son, currently living with a foster family in Florida. In another moment, the normally tight-lipped Virgil breaks down and recounts the horrible and senseless crime that landed him in prison.
Upon his release from the halfway house, Virgil finds work as a janitor and moves into Ruby's apartment. Together they form a kind of damaged family unit, dogged by mistrust, chemical dependency and the weight of their wasted lives, but a family nonetheless.
An already shaky domestic arrangement gets even shakier when the psychotic Manny Alvarez appears on Virgil and Ruby's doorstep. Unimpressed by Virgil's attempts to walk the straight and narrow, Manny decides a few minor adjustments are in order. As Manny expertly unravels all that Virgil has accomplished, Virgil learns a brutal and final lesson in the limits of love and his own good intentions...